The Kremlin Strike

Prologue

Flanked by a pair of heavily armed Ka-52 Alligator gunships, a twin-engine HeliVert AW139 helicopter clattered low over a forest of birch and pine, slowing as it turned toward a small clearing in the woods. Its tricycle landing gear swung down and locked in position. Rotors whirling, the helicopter flared in and settled onto a concrete pad painted to look like a natural blend of rock and grass from high altitude. The two Ka-52s veered away, climbing steeply to circle overhead.

Along the horizon, several dozen buildings rose among the trees. Until recently, Akademgorodok had been a booming center for venture-capital-funded research and development — a place tagged as Russia’s “Silicon Forest.” But now Moscow ran the science city’s labs and research institutes with an iron hand. The billions of rubles allocated to cybernetics, high-powered lasers, and other top secret weapons programs brought with them ever-tighter restrictions. This entire area southeast of the industrial city of Novosibirsk was now forbidden to those without the highest security clearances. And huge efforts were being made to conceal the existence of new factories and other facilities from foreign spy satellites.

As the AW139’s rotors slowed, soldiers double-timed across the concrete and fanned out to form a defensive perimeter. When the helicopter’s passenger cabin door slid open, they snapped to attention — presenting arms with a polished flourish as Russia’s president emerged. Gennadiy Gryzlov returned their salute with easy grace and dropped lightly down onto the camouflaged landing pad. At forty-five, he retained the rugged good looks that had won so many votes from his own people and, at least early on, the fawning admiration of gullible Western journalists.

The middle-aged military officer who stepped forward to greet him was cut from a very different cloth. Shorter than his commander in chief, though broad-shouldered and barrel-chested, Colonel General Mikhail Leonov would never be mistaken for a movie star. But any illusion that his round, open-featured face was that of a simple peasant or factory worker was dispelled by the intensity of his cold, appraising gaze. Recently promoted to head Russia’s aerospace forces, the tough-minded fighter pilot and cosmonaut had cut his way to the top of his profession by outflying, outfighting, and outwitting a host of peers and rivals.

“Welcome to the Special Devices Test Center, Mr. President,” Leonov said. He snapped a crisp salute.

With a short, sharp laugh, Gryzlov clapped him on the shoulder. “Come now, Mikhail! Why so formal? We’re not still junior cadets on parade, marching around like we’ve got sticks shoved up our asses. Those days are long behind us, thank God.”

“Old habits die hard, Gennadiy,” Leonov said, donning a dutiful smile at the other man’s crude humor. After all, he and Gryzlov had been classmates for several years, first at the Yuri Gagarin Military Air Academy and later at the Military Space Academy in St. Petersburg. Unlike the president, though, Leonov had completed his cosmonaut training and flown Soyuz spacecraft on several missions to the old International Space Station before transitioning back to fly conventional fighters like the MiG-29 and Su-27.

“True enough,” Gryzlov agreed. His expression hardened. “But die they must, Leonov. Old habits. Old ways of thinking. Old men unwilling to adapt. All of them. Russia needs agile, innovative warriors who aren’t afraid of the future. Men ready to seize every military advantage new technology offers. For too long, slow-thinking fossils like your late and unlamented predecessor wasted our resources on incremental improvements to existing aircraft, missiles, and other weapons, only to fail miserably against the Americans, the Poles, and their mercenaries when put to the test. The time for half measures and caution is over.”

Leonov nodded. Gryzlov meant what he said. One by one, the advisers who’d tried to temper his aggression and willingness to run risks had fallen by the wayside. Some of them were dead. The rest were disgraced or in prison. Of course, he thought coolly, the same fate awaited those who carried out the president’s bold plans… and still failed.

Serving Gennadiy Gryzlov was a high-wire act, one with very little margin for error.

“So,” the president said impatiently. “What do you have to offer me, Mikhail?” He waved a hand at the forest around them. Apart from a few ventilation and exhaust pipes disguised to look like trees and a dirt-and-log-covered bunker, there were no other signs of human handiwork. “The wonders of Siberian nature?”

Smiling more genuinely now, Leonov shook his head and ushered Gryzlov toward the bunker. “What you are about to see is wonderful, Gennadiy,” he said. “But I assure you that nothing about it is at all natural.”

His meaning became clearer when they pushed through an opening in the camouflage netting draped over the crude-looking shelter and were immediately confronted by a solid steel door. Leonov swiped his ID card through a reader next to the door. It beeped once. Then he pressed his palm against a biometric panel set into the door itself.

“Leonov, Mikhail Ivanovich. Positive identification,” a computer-generated female voice said with careful precision. “Mars Project Level One security clearance match.”

He turned to Gryzlov. “Now it’s your turn.”

The president raised an eyebrow. “You’re joking.”

“No, sir,” Leonov said. “No one is admitted to this facility without confirming his or her identity and required clearance level. Not even you, sir.”

“And if I refuse?”

Leonov shrugged. “Alarms will sound. That door will stay locked and sealed. And within moments we will find ourselves answering questions asked by some very unsympathetic security officers.”

“Otlichno, Mikhail,” Gryzlov said. “Very good. Security lapses have cost us dearly in the past. It’s high time somebody besides me understood the necessity of keeping secrets.” He took out his own ID card and followed the same procedure.

The massive steel door slid aside, revealing a waiting elevator car. As soon as the two men entered, the door closed. “Place defensive systems on standby,” Leonov ordered. “And then take us to the control level.”

“M. I. Leonov command authority confirmed. Defensive systems are on standby,” the computer acknowledged.

The car descended smoothly, swiftly dropping deeper into the earth. Holding on to a railing, Gryzlov turned his head. “Defensive systems?” he asked.

“A final precaution,” Leonov told him. “Should an enemy force breach the facility’s outer security, there are explosive charges set along the elevator shaft — rigged to kill any intruders and seal off the lower levels.”

Gryzlov whistled softly. “Entombing everyone inside?”

“There is a carefully concealed emergency exit,” he said calmly. “But if necessary, yes. The work being done here is vital to the defense of the Motherland. It would be better to sacrifice a few scientists and engineers than risk seeing the Americans or the Chinese get their hands on it.”

“You are one coldhearted son of a bitch, Mikhail,” Gryzlov said with evident approval.

The elevator slowed and came to a stop, nearly two hundred meters underground. When the door opened, they stepped out into a corridor guarded by a squad of tough-looking soldiers. Beyond the security post, another massive steel door blocked access to the control center. Though it was clear that the officer in charge recognized them, their ID cards were again closely scrutinized before they were allowed through.

Inside the control center, Gryzlov eyed his surroundings with evident interest. Computer consoles set on three stepped tiers faced a cinema-sized video screen showing the image of a huge, brightly lit chamber. Dozens of civilian scientists, technicians, and engineers wearing headsets manned the consoles, along with a handful of young-looking military officers. Intricate graphs and readouts blinked on each console. An air of keen anticipation filled the room.

Leonov turned to one of the scientists, an older man with a shock of thick, white hair. “Are you ready to proceed, Dr. Savvin?”

“We are, General,” the other man said with quiet confidence. “All systems are functioning perfectly.” At Leonov’s silent nod, the scientist spoke into his own headset mike. “All control stations, this is Savvin. Commence weapons test.”

Immediately Gryzlov heard a muted, high-pitched whine and felt a faint vibration coming through the floor. On the video screen, the appearance of the bright lights illuminating the huge chamber went oddly flat.

“High-efficiency pumps are emptying the test chamber’s atmosphere,” Leonov explained. “When they finish, it will be in a near-perfect vacuum.”

Gryzlov nodded. Without air molecules to diffract the light, no wonder it seemed so strange. He focused his attention on the screen.

At the far end of the chamber, he could see the full-scale mock-up of an American reconnaissance satellite — complete with fully extended solar panels, GPS receivers, downlink antennas, and radar dishes — hanging in midair, attached by wires to the ceiling, walls, and floor. Closer in, a maze of power conduits and fiber-optic cables surrounded a complex assembly of electronic equipment. To his untutored eye, this machine resembled a massive, upright, six-armed starfish with a short, stubby rod projecting from its center.

The shrill whine died away, along with the vibration. “Pump cycle complete,” one of the controllers reported. “Atmospheric pressure now less than one hundred nanopascals.”

Gryzlov was impressed. That was roughly one-hundred-millionth of the air pressure at sea level. In effect, atmospheric conditions in that vast chamber now closely approximated those of outer space.

Savvin glanced at another technician. “What is the weapon’s energy status, Andrei?”

“Our high-energy graphene supercapacitors are at full charge and holding.”

“Very good.” Savvin turned toward a trim aerospace forces officer seated at the nearest console. “You may fire when ready, Captain Kazantsev.”

“Firing now,” the younger man acknowledged. He leaned forward and tapped a glowing icon on a touch-screen control panel.

Instantly, the center of the large starfish array emitted a blinding white pulse. The satellite mock-up at the far end of the chamber shuddered violently — wreathed in a shimmering orb of lightning for just a split second. Shards of shattered solar panels and antennas spiraled away.

“That’s a confirmed kill,” another controller said exultantly, studying data from sensors attached to the satellite.

Gryzlov blinked. “What just happened?” he demanded.

Leonov grinned. “It will be easier to see in slow motion, Gennadiy. Fortunately, we have the entire test chamber covered by ultra-high-speed cameras.” He signaled Savvin. “Replay the attack sequence, Doctor.”

This time, Gryzlov watched closely, mesmerized by the otherworldly imagery. A glowing, meter-wide toroid of plasma emerged from the stubby cylinder in the middle of the array and streaked toward the target satellite — slamming into it with a blinding flash. When the lightning faded away, it left the satellite replica a blackened, half-melted wreck.

He shook his head in disbelief. “What the devil is that device?”

“Our new weapon, Mr. President — a coaxial plasma rail gun,” Leonov told him proudly. “We call it Udar Molnii, Thunderbolt.”

Gryzlov’s eyes narrowed in thought. “Go on.”

Leonov pointed to the cable-draped, starfish-shaped machine on-screen. “Using energy stored in the supercapacitors lining that six-armed structure, Thunderbolt creates a ring of extremely dense plasma, effectively a form of ball lightning, and then accelerates it with a powerful magnetic pulse.”

“At what speed?”

“Up to ten thousand kilometers a second,” Leonov said flatly. “Which is why these plasma toroids explode on contact with significant thermal and mechanical force. Those explosions also produce destructive electromagnetic pulse effects and high-energy X-rays.”

Ten thousand kilometers a second? Gryzlov was staggered. That was faster by orders of magnitude than any other missile or projectile ever invented by man. Only lasers, which struck at the speed of light, were faster. He dragged his gaze back to Leonov. “What is the effective range for this weapon?”

“At least several thousand kilometers,” the other man replied. “Perhaps more. Supercomputer simulations suggest the plasma toroids could remain stable for almost a full second.” He shrugged. “We would need operational testing in space to confirm those numbers, of course.”

For a moment, Gryzlov bared his teeth in a wolfish grin. Wicked glee danced in his pale blue eyes. Screw the naysayers who moaned and bitched about extravagant spending on what they called wild-eyed schemes, he thought. Together with the other advanced weapons, energy technologies, and space launch systems he’d championed as part of Proyekt Marsa, the Mars Project, this new plasma rail gun had the clear potential to make Russia the world’s unchallenged superpower. After all the narrowly disguised defeats and Pyrrhic victories of the past several years, he could at last sense his long-held ambitions and plans coming to fruition.

But then his predatory smile faded as he was struck by a sudden and very unwelcome possibility. “What about the Americans, Mikhail? Especially that damned company, Sky Masters. What if they’re working on a plasma rail gun of their own?”

“They are not,” Leonov said confidently.

“How can you be so sure?” Gryzlov snapped.

“Because the Americans themselves first tried to develop this weapon long ago — as part of their President Reagan’s so-called Strategic Defense Initiative. They named it MARAUDER, which stood for ‘magnetically accelerated ring to achieve ultrahigh directed energy and radiation,’” Leonov told him. “They even powered their experiments using capacitors in the same six-armed shape, something they called the Shiva Star.”

“And how, exactly, is learning that the Americans are potentially decades ahead of us supposed to comfort me?” Gryzlov said acidly. “In an arms race, victory does not go to those who lag so far behind.”

“That is the point,” Leonov said with a wry smile. “There is no arms race in this case. After a few small successes, a later American administration canceled the MARAUDER program — both to save money and because it opposed the whole concept of space-based weapons. So the Americans classified their research and then locked it away out of sight and out of mind… which is exactly where our spies uncovered it a few years ago, gathering dust and cobwebs.”

“So by the time our enemies realize their folly and scramble to restart their own long-mothballed program—” Gryzlov realized.

“It will be too late,” Leonov agreed. “Russia will own the very sky itself.”