The Moscow Offensive

Seventeen

With his chin tucked against his chest and his hands up to protect his face, Brad McLanahan closed in to make an attack. Quick as lightning, his opponent lashed out with a straight punch aimed at his chin. He parried it and riposted — only to find himself striking at empty air as she danced away out of reach.

“You are slow today, Brad,” Nadia Rozek said with a grin. There was a challenging gleam in her eye. She’d backed away across the padded practice mat and now stood balancing easily on the balls of her feet, obviously ready to react to any new move he made. This close to the dinner hour, they had the Iron Wolf gym all to themselves.

“Maybe you’re just hellaciously fast,” he countered. Then he grinned back at her. “Or maybe this is part of my cunning plan to lure you in closer.”

“For what? A kiss?”

“Well, either that… or a good shot at a couple of elbow strikes and a quick leg sweep,” Brad allowed.

Nadia dropped back into a fighting stance. “Well, then, come and take your best shot,” she taunted.

They closed with each other again and exchanged a rapid-fire flurry of blows, kicks, and parries delivered with stunning speed and precision. Each of them landed hits that could have been disabling if it hadn’t been for their protective sparring gear. Shaking off the pain, they broke contact a second time and fell back to their respective corners.

“Captain McLanahan! Major Rozek!” Brad heard someone call.

He glanced toward the voice, keeping a wary eye on Nadia with his peripheral vision. In the past, she’d proved all too willing to throw a sucker punch or three or four at distracted opponents. “All is fair in love, war, and Krav Maga,” was the excuse she’d gleefully offered.

Mike Knapp, one of Iron Wolf’s recon troopers, stood in the door looking worried. “What’s up, Sergeant?” Brad asked.

“Captain Schofield wants you both in the communications center, pronto,” Knapp said. “Somebody just whacked an Air Force base back in the States.”

An hour later, Brad, Nadia, and Macomber gathered in the squadron’s briefing room to go over what they’d learned. Polish president Piotr Wilk and Martindale were connected by a secure video link to Warsaw.

Brad kicked things off by replaying the most comprehensive of the breathless news flashes currently flooding the world’s airwaves and every corner of cyberspace. The others sat in silence, grimly focused as they watched Stacy Anne Barbeau’s visit to Barksdale Air Force Base turn from a public-relations triumph into a full-fledged national security disaster in the blink of an eye.

Near the end of the short news report, he tapped a control, freezing an image on their wall-sized screen. Through their link to Warsaw, the same picture could be seen by Piotr Wilk and Martindale. It showed a scene of horrific destruction, a vast expanse of concrete strewn with wrecked and burning aircraft and dead or dying U.S. Air Force personnel.

“This bit of footage of the attack on Barksdale was shot by one of the local TV news crews assigned to cover President Barbeau’s appearance on the base,” he said. “The rest of the ladies and gentlemen of the press ran for cover when the first missiles started screaming in.”

“Can’t say as I blame them,” Macomber grunted. “They don’t wear the uniform. And TV ratings aren’t worth getting killed for.”

Brad nodded. “No kidding.” He shrugged. “Nevertheless, we’re lucky these guys were either too gutsy or too dumb to bail out. Because otherwise, we’d be operating pretty much in the dark — relying on shaky eyewitness testimony about what just happened.”

“Operating in the dark about what?” Nadia Rozek asked carefully. This was the first time she’d seen these pictures. While Brad tried to make sense out of the reports cascading in, she’d been busy arranging this secure link to Warsaw and contacting Wilk and Martindale. She indicated the screen. “Isn’t what happened obvious? Someone, almost certainly the Russians, fired a large number of cruise missiles into that air base.”

“Sure.” Brad nodded. “But that’s only part of the story. From what I can figure, those missiles were all aimed at fixed targets. At stuff like the control tower and hangars and other key facilities. They weren’t fired at the F-35s, B-52s, and other aircraft parked out on the apron for Barbeau’s dog and pony show.”

“That would make sense,” his father agreed. “Buildings don’t move. Aircraft can. Setting up a coordinated cruise-missile strike like this one takes time. Why take even the slightest chance that your warheads will detonate over empty stretches of concrete when you can guarantee hits on fixed installations?”

Martindale’s face frowned from one corner of the screen. “Okay, what am I missing here?” he asked. “If it wasn’t Russian missiles, then what wiped out all of our planes?”

“Machines like this,” Brad said quietly. He leaned forward and tapped the video controls to zoom in, allowing the others to take a closer look at what he’d found while reviewing these images. Though blurry, the picture showed a dull gray human-shaped robot outlined against the distant woods in the background. It was carrying what appeared to be a large machine gun or autocannon in its hands. Weapons of other kinds studded its long torso.

“Mój Boże! My God!” Piotr Wilk said, almost too low to be heard.

Macomber sat staring at the screen for a long, painful moment. His jaw was set. Then he glanced at Patrick McLanahan. “You were right, General. Charlie Turlock and I fucked up at Perun’s Aerie. Somehow, we left enough pieces behind for that son of a bitch Gryzlov to build his own CIDs.”

“We all walked into that ambush, Whack,” Brad told him with a rueful look. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“My son’s right, Colonel,” the older McLanahan said. Through the visor of his life-support helmet, the lines on his face deepened. “Sooner or later, the Russians were bound to develop this technology. Exactly how they managed it is no longer important. What matters now is that we come up with a plan to handle what used to be our worst-case scenario.”

Slowly, Wilk nodded. His face was troubled. “That is indeed the issue, General. And I must admit that I am not sure of our best course of action in the face of this surprise attack.”

Caught off guard by the Polish leader’s unexpected hesitation, Brad glanced around the table at Nadia, Whack, and his father and then turned to face Wilk and Martindale squarely. “With respect, Mr. President, I would think our first step is pretty doggone clear,” he said carefully. “We’ve got to deploy a CID-equipped Iron Wolf team to the U.S. — and as quickly as possible.”

He leaned forward, intent on making his point. “We all know what these robots can do. Under most circumstances, there’s no way conventionally equipped U.S. troops, let alone any state or local cops, can tangle with the Russian equivalent of CIDs and survive, let alone win. Not if Gryzlov’s guys can operate covertly and strike at will… which sure as hell seems to be what he’s got in mind.”

“Yes, that is true. But we have to consider the possibility that a campaign of terror aimed at your country might not be all Gennadiy Gryzlov has planned,” Wilk said.

Brad frowned. “Meaning what, exactly?”

“This may be a feint,” the other man said. “The Russians could be attempting to lure the Iron Wolf Squadron’s combat robots out of position before launching a new onslaught against Poland and the rest of our allies.” He sighed. “Even without the services of its best Spetsnaz units, Russia’s armed forces still substantially outnumber ours. Your CIDs are the key to our defenses. Moscow knows that. Which is why sending your machines half the world away might be exactly what the enemy is counting on.”

“So we’re supposed to just sit here on our asses while Gryzlov wipes the floor with the U.S.?” Macomber snapped. “Look, I’ve got no great affinity for Stacy Anne Barbeau and the assholes she has running things, but that sure as hell doesn’t mean I don’t love my country… or that I don’t care what happens to it. Most of the people the Russians killed a couple of hours ago used to be my brothers- and sisters-in-arms. And I will be damned if I sit back and do nothing.”

“I’m sure that is not President Wilk’s intent, Colonel,” Martindale said cautiously. His eyes were watchful. “But he is right to urge caution until we get a better read on the situation… and a clearer sense of Gryzlov’s intentions.” He shook his head. “Besides, what can a single Iron Wolf team accomplish? Given the sheer size of the continental United States and the staggering number of potential targets, we have no realistic way to predict where the Russians might strike next. Without better intelligence, haring off into the wild blue yonder would be unwise.”

Macomber snorted angrily.

“I’m not proposing some wild-eyed stab in the dark,” Brad said flatly, working hard to sound calmer than he felt and defuse the tension. Whack could have been a lot more diplomatic, but fundamentally he was right. There was no way the Americans in the Iron Wolf Squadron could stand by and do nothing — not with their homeland under direct enemy assault. Which made it his job to persuade Wilk and Martindale to take them off the leash. “If you think about it logically, there’s at least one site that has to be pretty high up on Gryzlov’s list.”

“Very well, I’m open to the possibility that I’ve missed something obvious,” the head of Scion said with a wry half smile. “By all means, enlighten me.”

Oh, man, Brad thought, gritting his teeth, Martindale is so lucky that he isn’t sitting across the table from me right now. You couldn’t actually punch someone through a high-definition video link, which was too darned bad. And from the tight-lipped expression on Nadia’s face, he’d bet she was thinking along the same lines.

“The Russians are bound to hit Battle Mountain,” he said quietly. “And if they’re smart, they’ll do it soon.”

On the screen, he saw Piotr Wilk sit up straighter. “You believe Gryzlov will try to destroy the Sky Masters facilities there?” he asked.

“Yes, sir,” Brad said. “Right now, we’re almost totally dependent on the flow of CID upgrades, aircraft, drones, weapons, and sensors from Sky Masters. They’re the core of our current technological superiority over Russia.”

“A superiority that is already in serious jeopardy now that Gryzlov has his own combat robots,” his father said somberly.

Brad nodded. “Yep.” He looked pointedly at both Wilk and Martindale. “If we sit back and let the Russians destroy the labs, production facilities, and aircraft storage hangars at Battle Mountain, it’s not going to matter how many CIDs we have holding down the fort here in Poland or the rest of Eastern and central Europe — not in the long run, anyway.”

“Ah, jeez,” Macomber said grimly. “The kid’s right. Without the shiny Buck Rogers — style gizmos Sky Masters supplies, we’d be in a world of hurt.” He turned to Wilk. “You said it yourself. We’re already heavily outnumbered. If we lose our qualitative edge over the Russians, it’s all over.” Slowly, the Polish president nodded in agreement.

Frowning in concentration, Martindale stroked his chin. “And if you’re wrong and Gryzlov has other plans?” he asked after a moment.

“Then we recalibrate,” Brad said. “At a minimum, if we have a team already on the ground in the States, we cut our reaction time significantly.”

There was a long pause while the two older men in Warsaw silently considered what he’d said. Then Wilk nodded again, coming to a decision. “What do you propose, Captain McLanahan?”

“That we fly three Iron Wolf Squadron CIDs and a recon team to Nevada,” Brad told him.

“Openly?”

“No, sir. We’ll use the XCV-62 Ranger stealth transport to insert our force covertly.”

“You don’t trust the goodwill of Stacy Anne Barbeau?” Martindale asked dryly.

Brad shook his head. “Not so much as an inch.”

Everyone else nodded their understanding and agreement. For three long years Barbeau had stabbed them in the back every chance she got — even going so far as to send in a U.S. Special Forces team on a failed raid to sabotage the Iron Wolf Squadron’s base and then ordering American F-35s to shoot down the survivors of a desperate raid on Russian missile bases. There was no percentage in giving her another opportunity to take a shot at them, especially since they knew she desperately wanted to get her own hands on CID technology.

“Who will you assign to pilot the combat robots in this force?” Wilk asked.

“I’ll fly the XCV-62 in myself,” Brad said. “And then once we’re on the ground, I’ll take one of the CIDs.” He turned to Macomber. “I figure you’ll want to run one of the others, Whack.”

“Damn straight,” the bigger man agreed.

“And I will pilot the third Iron Wolf machine,” Nadia Rozek said in a firm voice that clearly indicated she would brook no argument.

“This isn’t exactly your fight, Major,” Martindale pointed out. “If things go wrong and this force gets nailed by the U.S. authorities, it’s going to be tough enough for any American-born member of Iron Wolf. It would be a lot worse for a Polish national—”

“Major Rozek is right, Mr. Martindale,” Piotr Wilk interrupted. “Your people have sacrificed much to help defend my country’s freedoms. Now it is our turn. Poland will stay true to its friends.” His eyes crinkled in a sudden smile. “Also, I suspect the good major would probably mutiny if I commanded her to remain behind.”

“‘Mutiny’ is a harsh word, Mr. President,” Nadia said demurely. She smiled back at him. “I think I would prefer to characterize my probable response to such an ill-advised order as an ‘unauthorized exercise of personal initiative.’”

“You see?” Wilk said to Martindale with an amused look. “The matter is completely out of my hands.”