The Kremlin Strike

Twelve

Right on schedule, the orange-and-gray-painted commuter train from Moscow pulled into the Tsiolkovskaya station and squealed to a stop midway along an open platform. Seconds later, passenger car doors slid open and a handful of middle-aged men and women in civilian suits and military uniforms stepped off the train — scientists, engineers, and administrators returning to Star City from high-level meetings at the Kremlin and other government ministries. Each was accompanied by a pair of security officers, hard-faced men who were assigned to keep an eye on them whenever they left the heavily guarded confines of the Star City cosmonaut training complex.

A wire fence topped with cameras and other sensors sealed off the station platform. Soldiers stood guard at the only opening in the barrier, a security checkpoint controlling further access to the compound. One by one, the passengers and their escorts filtered through the checkpoint — handing over their special ID cards for close inspection and submitting to biometric scans.

Unnoticed by any of them, a tiny, brown, birdlike glider circled silently overhead. The ultralight, palm-sized spy drone contained only a miniaturized digital camera and a few cell-phone components creating a communications link.

On the top floor of a dingy apartment building a mile outside the Star City security perimeter, a short, whip-thin young man tweaked the stick on a small handheld controller. His eyes were fixed on the images scrolling across the screen of his laptop computer. “Good pictures coming in now, Sam,” he said in a lilting Welsh voice. “And I’ve no trouble with the Wren Bravo. None at all. The winds are just right and she’s responding beautifully.”

Samantha Kerr nodded. “Thanks, Davey.”

David Jones was one of the veteran Scion operatives assigned to Marcus Cartwright’s Moscow-based intelligence team. The ultralight Wren glider he controlled was a more advanced version of the Cicada, a miniature reconnaissance drone first developed by the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C. Cicadas were designed for use in mass swarms after being dropped over targets by manned aircraft and larger drones. They were intended to gather intelligence on large-scale enemy troop movements using a range of lightweight, low-bandwidth sensors. In sharp contrast, the camera-equipped Wren Bravo, like its microphone-carrying cousin, the Wren Alpha, carried out much narrower and more focused missions — conducting photo reconnaissance and surveillance of individual human targets. Floating silently on the wind, riding thermals rising from the ground as it circled, it was almost impossible to detect.

Signals between Jones and the bird-sized Scion spy drone were being relayed through a portable dish antenna he’d set up on the apartment’s balcony. Anyone who noticed the dish would only assume the tenants, an elderly pensioner and his equally aged wife, had decided to sign up with one of Russia’s increasingly popular satellite television providers. Right now, though, the old couple was enjoying a rare vacation trip to the Black Sea — courtesy of the large sum of cash Sam had paid to rent their small, cramped flat.

Sam smiled to herself, remembering their delight and their hushed assurances that they would be “very discreet, very careful.” It was obvious they assumed she was a high-class prostitute who wanted to use their flat as a rendezvous for clients who worked inside Star City. She’d been very careful not to disabuse them of the notion. After all, it was the best kind of cover story, one dreamed up by the very people she wanted to deceive. Hadn’t someone once said the lies you told yourself were always more convincing than falsehoods told by others?

“There we go! I’ve got what you wanted, look now,” Jones said suddenly. He tapped a key on his laptop, freezing some of the pictures on its screen. “See here?”

Sam leaned forward, peering over his shoulder. The Wren had managed to capture good, clear images of at least two of the special Mars Project identity cards. Running those pictures through digital enhancement software should improve them to the point where Scion’s document forgery specialists could work their black magic. “Nicely done, Davey,” she said with delight. “Pull the Wren back now and set it down someplace near the highway. We’ll scoop it up on our way back to Moscow.”

With another small tug at the controller, Jones obeyed — breaking the tiny glider out of its orbit over the Tsiolkovskaya station and sending it sliding away downwind. Once the Wren ran out of airspeed and altitude, it would simply fall into the tall grass beside the road. There wasn’t much risk of discovery even if someone else stumbled across the little spy drone before they could retrieve it. Most people would assume they’d only found a child’s toy.

From across the tiny apartment, Marcus Cartwright caught Sam’s eye. “I still don’t see the point of this exercise,” the big man grumbled. “Even with perfectly forged Mars Project IDs, we won’t be able to break into Star City, or the Plesetsk and Vostochny launch sites. Our names and genuine biometric data aren’t on Gryzlov’s tightly controlled list of approved personnel… and we have no way to add them.”

Sam nodded. The special cybersecurity protocols created by the FSB’s Q Directorate to shield the Mars Project were too strong. Any attempt to hack through them would only set off alarms. “I agree,” she said evenly. “Which is why we’re not going to try cracking the perimeter security at any of those sites. Fortunately, we don’t need to.”

“Then what the hell is the point of going to all this trouble to forge some of those damned IDs?” Cartwright ground out through gritted teeth.

“Come now, Marcus,” she said with a smile. “You know my methods.”

“Sexual allure and carefully controlled violence?” he retorted.

“Well, okay, maybe not those methods,” Sam said with a low, throaty chuckle. Taking pity on him, she explained her thinking. They needed a work-around. If they couldn’t get into Star City themselves, they needed the next best thing — the chance to interrogate someone with direct, personal knowledge of the cosmonaut training program.

“Think about it,” she said. “Moscow’s apparently working up an elite cadre of military cosmonauts, right? Well, how many candidates usually make it all the way through that type of rigorous training?”

“Ten percent?” Cartwright said slowly. “Maybe twenty percent? Tops.”

“Exactly,” Sam said in satisfaction. “So there’s bound to be a much larger number of guys who made it through some part of the training course before washing out. We just zero in on the right cosmonaut wannabe and ask him a few pointed questions — backed up by the appropriate credentials. We don’t need Mars Project ID cards that can actually spoof Gryzlov’s multiple layers of security. We just need fakes that’ll convince someone who’s seen them up close and personal before.”

Cartwright frowned. “There are around five hundred thousand men and women serving in Russia’s aerospace forces,” he said dryly. “Not counting those who’ve recently left the service. How do we find the right needle in a haystack that big?”

“Only a handful of those five hundred thousand people have the necessary qualifications to make it as a cosmonaut,” Sam pointed out. “So that haystack of yours is really more like a handful of straw.” She smiled sweetly. “Besides, Russia’s Ministry of Defense personnel files aren’t nearly as tightly guarded as the rest of Gryzlov’s top secret programs, are they?”

“No, they’re not,” Cartwright agreed slowly. The Russians devoted a lot of cybersecurity effort to securing databases with information on weapons systems performance, procurement, and deployment. They spent far less energy safeguarding more mundane service and pay records. Exploiting this blind spot had paid dividends for Scion in the past. He looked at her. “So once we find the man you’re looking for, then what?”

“Ah, Marcus,” Sam said with a knowing grin. “That’s when the real fun starts.”

The large conference room adjoining Vostochny’s control center was on lockdown. Stern-faced members of Gennadiy Gryzlov’s plainclothes security detail stood on guard outside. For the duration of this top secret briefing on the Mars Project’s launch status, no one would be allowed in or out.

Inside the room, Colonel General Mikhail Leonov occupied the chair next to Gryzlov. Vostochny’s launch director, Yuri Klementiyev, sat across the table from them. No one else was present in person. Two secure video links connected them with the launch directors at Plesetsk and the Baikonur space complex in Kazakhstan. A third monitor showed Colonel Vadim Strelkov listening in from Star City’s cosmonaut training center. Strelkov would command the Mars One station once it was in orbit and operational.

“Our preparations here at Vostochny are proceeding on schedule,” Klementiyev said confidently. He touched a control, bringing up live feeds from cameras around the cosmodrome. One television picture showed a massive Energia-5VR heavy-lift rocket already in place on Pad 3, secure within the ring of retractable gantries. Another feed focused on a second, still-horizontal Energia space launch vehicle as it rolled slowly out of the main assembly building aboard a powerful freight train. “Barring unforeseen technical problems, both rockets will be fueled and ready for launch within forty-eight hours.”

Leonov nodded in satisfaction. Forty-eight hours was well inside their planned window. Given the number of problems that could crop up before any scheduled lift-off — ranging from glitches with the spacecraft itself to unexpected bad weather — it was always best to have plenty of time in hand.

The news from Plesetsk, located more than eight hundred kilometers north of Moscow, was equally good. Once mainly used to test new ICBM designs, the sprawling cosmodrome’s space launch facilities had been upgraded and expanded in recent years. Four rockets — two more big heavy-lift Energia-5VRs and two smaller medium-lift Angara-A5s — were either in position, ready for launch, or moving out to the pads.

Keeping his face impassive, Leonov listened carefully to the final site status report, this one from Baikonur’s Russian launch chief, Alexei Gregorjev. If it weren’t for Gryzlov’s sudden decision to drastically accelerate their timetable, he would have entirely avoided using the old space complex they were now leasing from Kazakhstan. In his judgment, the need to hide their real purposes and plans from Kazakhstan’s independent government represented a grave threat to the Mars Project’s secrecy. Kazakhstan’s leaders were too interested in developing closer economic ties with both the People’s Republic of China and the United States to be wholly reliable allies. If Kazakhs grew suspicious and started investigating Russia’s recent activity at Baikonur, they could cause serious trouble. But as it was, Leonov had no real choice. To meet the president’s ambitious schedule, he needed both Baikonur’s LC-1 launchpad and the two-stage, crew-rated Soyuz-5 rocket assembled in its production facility.

“The Soyuz-5 is ready for launch,” Gregorjev told them. “All indications show that the Federation orbiter is also fully flight-ready.”

“Is your cover story still holding?” Leonov asked.

Gregorjev nodded. “Yes, sir. As far as the Kazakhs and the international journalists here are aware, this spacecraft is only an unmanned test version.” He hesitated a moment. “Then again, why should they think otherwise?”

Leonov nodded back grimly. The Federation orbiter was Russia’s next-generation manned spacecraft, similar in shape and size to NASA’s Orion and SpaceX’s Dragon. In normal circumstances, no one would ever contemplate sending a crew into orbit using a wholly untested spacecraft design. During their Apollo moon landing program, the Americans had flown no fewer than eight flights with unmanned command modules — checking and rechecking the hardware and electronics to make sure everything worked as planned. Even during the opening, highly competitive days of the space race, Russia itself had conducted seven test launches of the first Vostok capsule designs without human cosmonauts on board. From a safety standpoint, what Gryzlov demanded — firing six men into space aboard a vehicle that had so far been proven reliable only in computer simulations — was sheer madness.

But when he’d pointed out the serious risks involved, Gryzlov had dismissed his concerns with a casual shrug. “Apollo and Vostok were peacetime space programs, Mikhail. You and I are embarked on a military operation, where risk and reward go hand in hand, do they not?” His gaze had turned cold. “Show me a commander unwilling to take chances and I will show you a coward.”

Now Gryzlov leaned forward, taking a direct part in the video conference for the first time. “How do the most recent weather forecasts look?” he demanded, addressing himself to the three directors at Vostochny, Plesetsk, and Baikonur. “Is there the slightest chance of a serious delay in any of our launches?”

One by one, they assured him the current forecasts were good, with only the minor possibility of a mild storm front pushing through Plesetsk before their scheduled launch date. Leonov, listening closely to these seemingly enthusiastic reports, nevertheless caught the faint undercurrent of anxiety emanating from his subordinates. Like him, they understood the grave dangers involved in flying so much new equipment without adequate tests. But like him, they also understood that they no longer had an alternative.

By now, the Americans, alerted by pictures taken by their spy satellites, would know that something very strange was going on at Russia’s space complexes. Moving seven rockets simultaneously toward launch readiness represented an unprecedented level of activity. Very soon, Moscow could expect a flood of pointed, suspicious queries from Washington.

No, Leonov thought, there was no going back. Russia was committed. And win or lose, they stood on the brink of a new age.

However, it still came as something of a shock when he heard Gryzlov issue the final necessary and irrevocable order to the military cosmonauts on standby at Star City. “Colonel Strelkov,” he said flatly. “You will proceed immediately to Baikonur with your first Mars One crew and prepare for launch.”