The Moscow Offensive

Fifteen

“We’re on final approach to Barksdale, Madam President,” one of Stacy Anne Barbeau’s uniformed military aides reported.

With a big, friendly smile, she looked up. “Why, thank you, Tommy. I appreciate the heads-up. I must have been lost in my reading.”

Ostentatiously, she closed the thick briefing book she’d been pretending to study since flying out from Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington, D.C., more than two hours ago. Why the Pentagon brass thought she could possibly be interested in an assembly of boring background papers about the different units stationed at Barksdale was a mystery. Irritating though it was, there were certain niceties to be observed in her sometimes tense relationship with the U.S. military. Despite the big-ticket weapons projects and pay increases she’d rammed through Congress, too many officers and enlisted personnel disliked her administration and were hoping that Farrell would beat her in November.

The big 747-8, designated a VC-25B in its military configuration, vibrated slightly as its landing gear came down and locked.

Barbeau leaned over in her luxurious big leather seat to look out the armored window. They were coming in low over the lush green woods and bayous of northwestern Louisiana. Off to the west, she could see the muddy brown waters of the Red River snaking back and forth between Shreveport and Bossier City.

Luke Cohen poked his head in through the open door to her onboard office. “We’re all set. The press plane landed an hour ago. And our advance team has the good little boys and girls of the media safely corralled in a roped-off area. They’ve got great camera angles for your arrival, review of the troops, and speech — but they’re set up just a little too far away for any awkward candid interviews with people on the base.”

“Are any of them bitching about that?”

Her White House chief of staff shrugged. “A couple.” He gave her a sly grin. “But our guys blamed it on the Air Force. The imperatives of national security, you know.”

“Nice job,” Barbeau said, pleased. The fact that Barksdale itself was closed to civilians was one of the pluses in what her staff was billing as an official inspection of “renewed American airpower” by the nation’s commander in chief. The press could either parrot back the story she handed them on a platter… or nothing. “How’s the weather shaping up?”

“It’s hot and muggy as hell,” Cohen said. “But the most recent forecast says it won’t rain until much later, long after we’re gone.”

She nodded. Louisiana was her home state and oppressive temperatures and humidity were typical for this time of year. Fortunately, the same Botox injections that smoothed out her wrinkles and made her look years younger than her real age also kept her from sweating. That was just one more secret weapon in her political arsenal. While everyone around her looked about ready to melt, she would come across as cool, clean, and perfectly composed.

Air Force One touched down with barely a jolt and decelerated in a roar of reversed engines and brakes, slowing fast as it rolled down the air base’s nearly twelve-thousand-foot-long runway. Cohen gripped the edge of the doorframe and rode easily with the motion.

Barbeau turned back to the window. Outside, she could see thousands of airmen and officers lined up at parade rest in neat ranks. Their blue dress uniforms made a nice contrast with the reddish-brown earth tones of the wide concrete apron. Twenty-four multirole stealth fighters of the U.S. Air Force’s first operational F-35 Lightning II squadron were parked behind them. Next to the fighters were a half-dozen mammoth, dark gray B-52H Stratofortress strategic bombers, along with two swept-wing XB-1F Excaliburs.

She hid a frown. Those two Excaliburs, and the others deployed elsewhere, were old B-1B Lancers originally upgraded by Sky Masters as part of one of Patrick McLanahan’s nutty private military schemes. Sure, she’d had the Air Force seize the XB-1F bombers for its own use as soon as she took office. Nevertheless, seeing them here was an unwelcome reminder that the U.S. armed forces were still too dependent on weapons and aircraft authorized by her old political rivals.

For nearly four years, Barbeau’s administration had blocked Sky Masters from landing new Pentagon contracts, but the company limped along anyway — surviving on sales to the domestic market, foreign countries, and Martindale’s Scion mercenaries. She gritted her teeth. It was high time that she shoved Sky Masters and its backers into the dustbin of aviation history. And with luck, today’s big show would help make that happen by unveiling America’s newest and most advanced long-range stealth bomber.

“Where’s our B-21 Raider prototype?” she asked, still watching out the window. There, at the far end of the apron, she saw a light gray C-17 Globemaster III transport waiting off to the side. That plane had flown in ahead of Air Force One, ferrying the black SUVs and limousines that made up her presidential motorcade. There were no plans for her to drive anywhere on this trip, but the Secret Service always insisted on covering all possible bases.

“Orbiting a few miles away, out of sight,” Cohen told her. “I confirmed that with our liaison to the contractor a couple of minutes ago.”

“And the flight crew knows what to do?”

The New Yorker nodded. “As soon as we’re parked and the Secret Service has cleared you to deplane, they’ll start their approach. Everything’s timed so that shiny new B-21 Raider will touch down just as you’re being greeted by the base commander and his staff.” He winked at her. “Those pictures are going to lead every newscast tonight, Madam President. They’ll be on the front page of every newspaper tomorrow morning. Hell, they’ll go viral on the Internet as soon as we upload them to the White House website and reporters post their own pics on social media.”

Stacy Anne Barbeau smiled broadly. This taxpayer-funded kickoff for her presidential reelection campaign would be a day to remember.

Accompanied by the soft whine of servos and actuators, a sleek, deadly-looking gray machine stalked through the woods and bayous east of Barksdale’s runway. Shadows cast by magnolias, oak trees, and tall slash pines flowed across its elongated torso, eyeless spherical head, and thin, agile arms and legs. Despite the bulky weapons packs strapped to it, the robot moved with remarkable speed and stealth.

Quietly, it came to a place where the trees grew closer together. Ahead, the ground sloped down very slightly into a tangle of ferns and thickets of switch cane. Knobby, thick-trunked bald cypresses rose out of a ribbon of stagnant, tea-colored water.

Suddenly the robot stopped moving. It crouched lower, nestling down among the undergrowth. Its antenna-studded head swiveled rapidly from side to side.

Inside the cockpit, KVM senior pilot Oleg Imrekov studied his displays. He was picking up a bright green thermal signature, man-sized and — shaped, a little over one hundred meters ahead — on the other side of this narrow stretch of bayou. Using a low-light visual sensor slaved to his robot’s thermal imager, he zoomed in on the same spot.

He saw a young American soldier in camouflage fatigues standing next to a small, four-wheel all-terrain vehicle. Through a pair of binoculars, the soldier was peering up at a bird’s nest in the branches of a tall pine tree farther down the bayou. By the twin stripes on his sleeve, he was an airman first class, and a unit patch identified him as a member of the 2nd Security Forces Squadron. Apart from a holstered 9mm pistol, the American was unarmed.

Imrekov opened a secure radio link. “Prividenye Lead, this is Two.”

Colonel Baryshev replied immediately. His own combat robot was moving through the woods about five hundred meters north of this position. “Specter Lead to Specter Two. Go ahead.”

“I’ve encountered an American airman to my front. He hasn’t seen me yet, but there is no way I can go around him without being spotted.”

“Is this man a sentry or a scout?” Baryshev asked, sounding concerned, and rightly so. Nothing in Kirill Aristov’s reconnaissance reports had suggested they might run into enemy resistance along this concealed line of approach. If the Americans had scouts or observation posts deployed this far out from the runway, their assault could be easily compromised. It was essential that all six Russian KVMs reach the target without being detected.

“Neither,” Imrekov said. “The American seems to be bird-watching. He may be one of their game wardens.”

He heard the colonel bite down on a curse. Barksdale Air Force Base sprawled over more than twenty-two thousand acres. Some of that land was set aside as protected nature preserves. Monitoring the endangered plant and animal species on this huge base was the job of a very small force of airmen assigned as game wardens. And that made this sudden, unexpected meeting sheer bad luck.

“Can you silence the American before he raises an alarm?”

“I think so,” Imrekov replied calmly.

“Then do it.”

Obeying the commands he relayed through his neural link, Imrekov’s KVM leaped to its feet and charged forward into the bayou, accelerating up with every long-legged stride. Stagnant, foul-smelling water splashed high across the robot’s spindly legs.

Startled by the sudden explosion of noise, the young American airman spun toward the bayou. He dropped his binoculars, fumbling for the pistol holstered at his side. His eyes widened. “What the hell—”

Imrekov’s machine burst out of the swamp in a spray of mud and torn vegetation. Before the airman could get a firm grip on his Beretta M9 pistol, the Russian KVM pilot leaned forward and batted him aside with one of the robot’s large metal hands. With a muffled cry, the American went tumbling head over heels in a spray of blood and broken bone. He landed facedown in a clump of ferns and collapsed in an unmoving heap, clearly dead.

“Situation resolved satisfactorily,” Imrekov radioed. “Specter Two is proceeding to target at best possible speed.”

Regan Air Freight Flight 175 flew southeast at twenty-five thousand feet through blue skies marked by wisps of high, thin white cloud. According to its flight manifest, the 737-200F cargo jet was ferrying wind turbine components from Indianapolis to Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport. But instead of turbine blades and nacelles, sixteen Kh-35UE cruise missiles filled its cargo compartment, waiting silently on four track-mounted rotary launchers.

“Regan One-Seven-Five, Memphis Center,” an air traffic controller said in Colonel Yuri Annenkov’s headset, “contact Fort Worth Center on one-three-four-point-four-seven-five. Have a good day.” They were leaving the airspace supervised by the FAA’s Memphis Air Traffic Control Center and entering that monitored by its Fort Worth counterpart.

Annenkov clicked his mike. “One-three-four-point-four-seven-five for Regan One-Seven-Five. Thank you, Memphis.” He waited while his copilot, Major Konstantin Uspensky, changed radio frequencies as directed. Then he keyed his mike again. “Fort Worth Center, Regan One-Seven-Five, level two-five-zero.”

The voice of a new controller responded immediately, acknowledging that they were in his area of responsibility and that he had them on his radar screen. “Regan One-Seven-Five, roger.”

Annenkov made sure he wasn’t broadcasting over the radio and glanced at Uspensky. “Give me a position check.”

His copilot toggled one of the multifunction cockpit displays added when this old Boeing air freighter was secretly converted into a cruise-missile carrier. A map appeared, showing their current position and projected course. A red dot pulsed rhythmically about twenty nautical miles ahead. “We’re coming up on our preplanned launch coordinates, Colonel,” he confirmed. “Three minutes out.”

“Then let’s run through the attack checklist,” Annenkov said, summoning up his own digital copy with a quick tap. He read off the first item. “Confirm power to rotary launcher handling system.”

“The handling system is live,” Uspensky said, checking to make sure electrical power was flowing to the array of high-speed pulleys and hoists that would haul their rotary launchers along the rails built into the cargo deck floor.

“Bring the launchers online.”

The copilot tapped controls on his MFD. Four lights on a schematic of the cargo compartment turned green. “Our rotary launchers are online and linked to the attack computer.”

“Transfer our GPS coordinates to the computer and initialize the missile inertial guidance systems.”

Uspensky obeyed, efficiently keying in the commands that fed their precisely calculated current position to the inertial navigation systems that would control the Kh-35s in flight. More green lights blossomed on his displays. This was a work-around to help reduce the small position errors inevitably accumulated by inertial systems during flight. More modern Kh-35 missiles included GLONASS receivers, which enabled them to obtain highly accurate satellite navigation data from Russia’s equivalent of the U.S. global positioning system. But using those advanced missile variants would have made it easier to pin this attack on Moscow itself, rather than on someone else using Kh-35s covertly purchased on the international arms black market. “Guidance systems initialized.”

“Confirm preselected target sets are downloaded to the missiles,” Annenkov ordered.

“All target sets are downloaded.”

“Bring the missiles to full readiness.”

Uspensky tapped more virtual controls on his display. He watched closely as data scrolled across the screen in response. “Radar altimeters are good. Turbofans are good. Self-destruct systems are good.” He looked up. “All missiles are flight-ready, Colonel.”

“Checklist complete,” Annenkov said in satisfaction. “Time to launch position?”

“Thirty seconds.”

Annenkov tightened his shoulder straps and donned an oxygen mask. Beside him, Uspensky did the same. He reached up to the overhead instrument panel and set the 737’s pressurization control system to manual. He flipped two switches on the same panel. “Depressurizing the cargo deck.”

The engine bleed valves feeding pressurized air to the jet’s cargo deck closed tight. At the same time, outflow valves opened on the fuselage. Pressure on the cargo deck dropped fast, rapidly equalizing with that of the much thinner atmosphere at twenty-five thousand feet.

“Fifteen seconds,” Uspensky reported, watching their current position indicator close on the launch coordinates RKU’s planners had selected for this mission.

Carefully but quickly, Annenkov entered another command on his MFD, temporarily transferring control of the aircraft to their attack computer. He put his hands back on the yoke, but kept them relaxed.

“Five seconds.”

At a precisely computed moment, the 737’s enlarged forward cargo door unlatched and slid back along its fuselage. The twin-engine jet shuddered, rocked by increased turbulence.

“Commencing attack,” Uspensky said tersely.

Smoothly, their first rotary launcher whirred into position at the open cargo door and started spinning, ejecting sky-gray cruise missiles out into the slipstream. As soon as all four of its missiles were away, the now-empty launcher swung toward the rear of the aircraft — replaced almost immediately with the next in line.

One by one, the sixteen Kh-35s dropped toward the distant earth. Their turbofan motors would not ignite until they reached their operational attack altitude, just ten to fifteen meters above the ground. No one saw them falling away from the 737. Between their camouflage paint and relatively small size, the missiles were effectively invisible to other aircraft in the area — all of which were separated laterally by at least five nautical miles and vertically by two thousand feet. The Kh-35s were also too small to show up on the civilian air-traffic-control radars monitoring this sector.

“Launch complete,” Uspensky reported from his side of the cockpit. “No ordnance remaining.”

The 737’s forward cargo door slid shut and sealed. With Annenkov back at the controls, Regan Air Freight Flight 175 continued on its submitted flight plan toward Dallas/Fort Worth. To all outward appearances, it was again just one of the thousands of commercial jets operating in U.S. airspace.

Louisiana state police sergeant Damon Benoit swung down out of his official Chevrolet Tahoe and started walking up the shoulder of Interstate 20 toward the blue Honda Odyssey minivan he’d just pulled over for speeding. The Honda had Texas plates.

Ah, how wonderful, he thought sarcastically. Yet another family from the Dallas or Fort Worth suburbs heading off on vacation and too rushed to obey the traffic laws of their neighboring state. He sighed, already imagining the harassed-looking driver’s embarrassed apologies and pleas for mercy.

Suddenly a finned gray cylinder blurred overhead with an earsplitting howl. It was flying so low that it barely cleared the tops of the trees lining both sides of the divided highway. Startled, Benoit dove for the ground, instinctively clawing for the Glock 22 pistol at his side. His campaign hat flew off, blew into the road, and disappeared under the wheels of an eastbound Toyota Camry.

More missiles slashed through the sky in rapid succession, all heading southwest. Along the highway, shocked drivers gawked up through their windshields at the shapes streaking through the air just above them… and then just as abruptly slammed on their brakes, frantically swerving to avoid colliding with other cars and trucks. Tires squealed and horns blared in all directions.

Swearing out loud, Benoit scrambled to his feet, turned, and sprinted back toward his patrol SUV and its radio.