The Kremlin Strike

One

Seen through a thin screen of pine trees, the little village looked abandoned. Except for a few dingy, off-white curtains wafting in the gentle breeze, nothing moved among its cluster of drab one-story houses or along its rutted dirt streets. Old-model civilian cars and light trucks, more rust and dents than anything else, were parked outside some of the homes.

Crouched in cover near the edge of the forest, Polish Special Forces Major Nadia Rozek slowly lowered her binoculars. According to the intelligence briefing for this special training exercise, a simulated force of Russian Spetsnaz commandos was holed up in the town — probably using its inhabitants as human shields. Which meant appearances were deceiving. A slight frown creased her attractive, tanned face. More than one hundred meters of open ground separated these woods from the nearest houses. No competent enemy commander would miss the chance to turn that clear stretch into a killing zone.

“Ryś Jeden do Ryś Trzy,” she radioed. “Lynx One to Lynx Three. Report.”

Lynx Three was her two-man sniper team. They’d infiltrated in ahead of the rest of the assault force. By now they should have settled into a concealed position that offered them a good view of the town and its immediate surroundings.

“Lynx Three to One.” Sergeant Karol Sikora’s calm voice crackled through her earphones. “We see no sign of the enemy on this side of the village. There are no thermal traces in the buildings we have eyes on. Repeat, none.”

Nadia bit down on the urge to tell him to look harder. The sergeant wasn’t a rookie. Like her, Sikora was a veteran of the Iron Wolf Squadron — an elite, high-tech force of pilots, intelligence operatives, and special-operations soldiers that had helped defend Poland and its Eastern European allies against periodic Russian aggression for several years. Originally, the squadron’s men and women were all foreign-born, mostly Americans. In fact, she’d first been assigned to Iron Wolf chiefly as a liaison officer for Poland’s president, Piotr Wilk. But as casualties mounted, more Poles joined the unit in combat roles — accumulating valuable experience and technical expertise before rotating back to their nation’s regular armed forces.

So when the sniper sergeant said there weren’t any Spetsnaz troops deployed in the houses with fields of fire covering this approach, she could take it to the bank. Which left one big problem. Where in hell were the Russians she’d come to kill? Were they really foolish enough to let her soldiers push inside the town without a fight? No, she decided, somehow she was still missing a piece of this tactical puzzle.

Nadia’s frown deepened. The clock was running. Every second she spent now trying to decide what to do next would cost her dearly later — on the back end of this mission. But while speed was life when you were already under fire, attacking blindly, without thorough reconnaissance, was usually a recipe for disaster.

Her mind ran faster. By refusing to defend the edge of the village, her Spetsnaz opponents clearly wanted to lure her into risking a quick dash across that wide-open ground ahead of them. Which meant—

“Lynx Three, this is One,” Nadia said into her headset mike. “Check out the tree line on our right and left flanks. Don’t rush it. Take your time and do a thorough job.”

“Understood, Lynx One,” Sikora replied. “Scanning now.” In these conditions, the SCT-2 thermal sights he and his spotter were using should be able to pick out a human-sized target at well over a thousand meters. If the Russian troops were sheltering under anti-infrared camouflage cloth, it would be tougher to spot them. But nothing short of the highly advanced camouflage systems used by Iron Wolf’s combat robots could render a target effectively invisible… and those were systems Russia still could not replicate.

Nadia glanced over her shoulder. Her assault force, broken into three six-man sections, squatted among the trees close by, waiting for the order to go in. Bulky in their body armor, tactical vests, Kevlar helmets, and shatterproof goggles, most of her Special Forces soldiers cradled short-barreled Heckler & Koch HK416 carbines. She could sense their eagerness. Like wolfhounds scenting prey, they were keyed up, straining at the leash.

“Three to One,” Sikora said suddenly. “You were right, Major. There’s a Russian weapons team dug in on the edge of the woods, about two hundred meters off on our left flank. I count two Spetsnaz troops with a PKP machine gun sited to sweep the clear ground.”

Nadia breathed out. The PKP Pecheneg light machine gun was a fearsome weapon, designed especially for Russia’s Spetsnaz units and mechanized infantry. Capable of firing between six hundred and eight hundred 7.62mm rounds per minute, that belt-fed automatic weapon would have cut her men to pieces the moment they left the cover of the trees. “Take them out on my signal,” she ordered.

“Understood.”

Carefully, she rose from her crouch and checked over her own HK carbine and other gear one last time. Soft rustling sounds indicated that the rest of the assault force was following her lead. No one wanted to find out the hard way that some vital piece of equipment had gotten tangled up or gone missing while they’d slogged their way through a couple of kilometers of dense forest to reach this position.

Of course, Nadia thought wryly, sometimes there was nothing you could do about things that were missing. She glanced down at where her feet should be — and no longer were. Instead, she saw the twin tips of her black carbon-fiber prosthetic running blades. Though the sight was no longer alien, she still couldn’t pretend that it felt natural. Not even after almost a full year.

Last summer, while defeating a Russian attempt to assassinate the man who was now America’s president, she’d been badly wounded. To save her life, trauma surgeons had been forced to amputate both of her maimed legs below the knee. Weeks of agonizing hospitalization had been followed by months of exhausting and painful rehabilitation. First, she’d relearned to walk using conventional prosthetics. Then more months had been needed to master the use of these agile, incredibly flexible running blades — and to rebuild her lost strength and endurance. And all of it — all her hard work, all her sweat, all her pain — had been driven by a single, overriding imperative: to prove that she was still fit for active service in Poland’s Special Forces, even without her legs.

Well, today is that day, Nadia told herself. Win or lose, this was the chance she’d fought for.

“Lynx Three, this is One,” she snapped. “Nail that machine-gun team.” She started forward. “All other Lynx units. Follow me!”

Two muffled cracks echoed through the nearby woods.

“Enemy weapons team down,” Sikora reported. “We have your back, Major.”

Good enough, Nadia thought. Now to cross that killing zone before the Russians realized their ambush had been blown. She moved faster, accelerating from a deliberate, almost gliding walk to a tooth-jarring, equipment-rattling jog. Then, as soon as she broke past the last few trees and came out into the open, she sprinted onward at top speed — bounding forward on her prosthetic blades toward the center of the little village.

Two of her assault sections peeled away, moving off to the left and right. They were tasked with fighting their way into the town from opposite sides — in a pincer movement intended to spread the enemy’s defenses and smash any attempted retreat. The six men of the third section stuck with her.

Nadia darted past the first row of empty houses and dropped into cover behind an old, banged-up Tarpan pickup truck. Her troops spread out around her, weapons up and ready to fire at the first sign of any hostile movement.

Voices flooded through her earphones as the other section leaders provided a running commentary on their progress. Their units were systematically clearing houses, going room to room in a hunt for Spetsnaz holdouts and any hostages. Stun grenades exploded with ear-piercing bangs, followed almost instantly by short, sharp bursts of assault-rifle fire.

“House One clear. One hostile down. No civilians present.”

“House Five clear. Two hostiles dead. No civilians here.”

“House Nine clear. No contact.”

Comparing their reports with her mental map of the town, Nadia realized that roughly half of the estimated Russian commando force was still unaccounted for… along with around a dozen innocent men, women, and children. Realistically, there was only one place left that was big enough to hold that many people. She risked a quick glance around the pickup truck’s rusting bumper.

The village’s largest building sat not far away down the street. According to the quick-and-dirty intelligence briefing she’d received, that gray cinderblock eyesore served as a kind of community center — a place for celebrations, day-care classes, local meetings and political rallies, and even a small, bare-bones health clinic staffed by a visiting nurse. Its main entrance, a set of big double doors, looked out onto the road.

Nadia snorted. There was no way in hell she would lead a charge through those doors. The easy way is always mined, ran one of Murphy’s half-humorous, half-serious laws of war. Or, in this case, probably rigged with a booby trap and zeroed in on by a couple of cold-eyed Spetsnaz bastards just itching to even today’s score by killing a few Poles. Even though it would cost her more time, they needed to find another way inside.

Swiftly, she led the way around one of the abandoned houses and then along a narrow alley crowded with bags of garbage, old mattresses, and waist-high stacks of worn-out tires. The alley opened onto a small cross street paralleling one side of the community center. And there, flanked by overflowing trash bins, was another door — narrow, dingy, and looking as though it was almost never opened. Perfect, Nadia thought.

Using quick, silent hand signals, she deployed her small force, stationing two soldiers to provide covering fire while the rest lined up behind her in a tactical stack next to that side door. Satisfied, she tapped the section’s breaching expert, Sergeant Dombrowski, lightly on the shoulder. “Make us a hole, Tadeusz,” she murmured, easing a flashbang grenade out of one of her assault-vest pouches.

With a nod, he moved around her and racked his Mossberg 500 twelve-gauge shotgun to chamber breaching rounds. Angling the shotgun down at a forty-five-degree angle, he jammed the muzzle tightly against the door — aiming halfway between the knob and doorframe. Wham. Wham. Two quick shots blew a hole through the door and smashed its lock.

Without pausing, Dombrowski kicked the door open and whirled away. In the same split second, Nadia leaned forward and lobbed her grenade through the opening.

BANG.

The stun grenade detonated with a blinding flash. Smoke and dust eddied out of the doorway.

“Go! Go! Go!” Nadia shouted. Tucking her HK securely against her shoulder, she rolled through the swirling smoke and into the building — sliding right to clear the way for the other Polish Special Forces soldiers pouring inside after her.

They were in a large room filled with overturned tables and chairs. Through the gray haze hanging in the air, she could make out indistinct shapes sprawled across a scuffed-up linoleum floor. Frowning, she glided sideways, keeping her back to a wall. Her eyes scanned back and forth, alert for any signs of movement.

Abruptly, motion flickered at the right edge of her vision. She spun in that direction, seeing what looked like a Spetsnaz commando holding a rifle pop up from behind one of the overturned tables. Trained instincts took over. She squeezed off a three-round burst.

Pieces flew off the mannequin and it flopped backward. Its helmet spun lazily across the floor.

“One hostile dead and down,” she said coolly, already swinging back to hunt for another valid target.

More HK carbines stuttered as some of her troops spotted different figures representing Russian soldiers and opened fire. The others barked orders, warning the simulated civilians trapped inside this room to “get down and stay down!”

Nadia kept moving, advancing deeper into the tangle of tables and chairs. Part of her admired the illusions created by those who’d put together this combat exercise. Another part felt frustrated. Shooting up silhouettes, mannequins, and pop-up targets was never as satisfying as facing off against live foes. As Whack Macomber, one of the Americans she’d served with in the Iron Wolf Squadron, would often growl, “These frigging battle simulations are a lot like kissing your sister.”

Clearing the rest of the shooting house reconfigured as a “community center” took several more minutes of close, effective teamwork — carefully working through a labyrinth of rooms filled with a mix of targets dressed as both Spetsnaz soldiers and innocent Polish civilians. When they were finished, she ordered everyone back outside.

Once there, they regrouped with the rest of the assault force.

“Training Command, this is Lynx One,” Nadia radioed, scowling down at her watch. They were running very short on time. “We’ve cleared the village. All hostiles eliminated. No friendly casualties.”

“Acknowledged, Major Rozek,” a laconic voice replied. “We show Phase One complete. Proceed immediately to Exercise Area Bravo.”

She sighed inside. Area Bravo was more than a kilometer away. Good Christ, she thought. This was going to be tight. Very tight.

Concealing her worries, Nadia issued out a set of rapid-fire orders that deployed her troops into a column of fours and put them in motion. With her in the lead, they set off at a fast trot — hurrying back into the forest and down a winding dirt road in a rattle and clatter of weapons and equipment.

Ten minutes later, they broke out into the open again. A three-meter-high log wall stretched across their path. After they’d spent hours tramping through the woods in full battle gear and then fighting their way through a mocked-up village, the obstacle looked as tall and imposing as the Great Wall of China.

Nadia took a deep breath. This was it. She turned her head. “All right, guys. Let’s go! Up and over and through!”

She set off at a dead run. Just short of the wall, she leaped upward, grabbing a handhold between two logs near the top and planting one of her blades on the narrow edge of another log, lower down. Then, pushing off with the flexible prosthetic limb, she jumped again and got both gloved hands on top of the obstacle. Breathing hard, she swung herself up and onto the top of the wall — using her arms and upper-body strength to compensate for her missing legs.

Without pausing, Nadia lowered herself down the other side and dropped the last few feet. She rolled over and came up facing a wide field crisscrossed by barbed-wire entanglements and shallow, muddy ditches. Instructors manned machine guns set on fixed mounts along one edge of the field.

Gritting her teeth, she scrambled upright, ran forward, and then dove headlong into one of the ditches. Cradling her carbine in both hands, she wriggled forward using her elbows and knees for leverage. Her blades, perfect for running on firm ground, were virtually useless now… deadweight. Their slick, carbon-fiber surfaces couldn’t get enough traction in the soft, sticky mud.

The machine guns began firing. Live tracer rounds whipcracked low overhead — drawing lines of glowing fire across the field just a few centimeters above the razor-sharp coils of barbed wire. Soldiers started to pass her on both sides. She was falling behind the pace. Nadia swore silently and pushed on, straining to crawl faster.

WHUMMP.

A fountain of mud erupted a few meters away. Seconds later, more small explosions rippled across the obstacle course. Wonderful, she thought grimly. The trainers were setting off buried pyrotechnics to simulate mortar rounds, grenades, and mines. That was all she needed now.

Tucking her head low to snake under a wire entanglement, she squirmed onward. Barbs snagged at her tactical vest and then tore loose. She raised up slightly, spat out a mouthful of mud, and risked a quick look ahead.

The edge of the field was just twenty meters away.

WHUMMP.

Another pyrotechnic went off close by, spattering enormous clumps of mud and dirt into the air. The blast knocked her sideways… right into another coil of barbed wire.

Caught in the entanglement, Nadia strained to move. Barbs jabbed and tore at her sleeves, ripping through the tough camouflage cloth and drawing blood. A loose strand had even wrapped itself tightly around her prosthetic blades. Ignoring the pain, she yanked a pair of wire cutters out of one of her equipment pouches, curled up, and went to work — grimly slicing through the metal strands pinning her in place. She needed to free herself as fast as possible and keep going.

But it was too late. Whistles blew shrilly, signaling the end of the exercise.

“Shit,” Nadia muttered. Suddenly exhausted, and fighting down tears of frustration, she sat up and finished cutting herself free. Despite her best efforts, she’d failed to complete the course in the required time.