The Moscow Offensive

Thirty-Six

Brad McLanahan stepped out from under the camouflage netting hiding their aircraft, joining Nadia Rozek and Whack Macomber on the shallow grassy slope. Ian Schofield and his four recon troopers were nowhere in sight — which undoubtedly meant they were lurking somewhere close by in cover, ready to respond to any attack.

Nadia and Macomber stood looking up into the starlit sky, listening to the faint clatter of a helicopter growing louder as it drew closer. Both had their personal weapons out and ready. “You can all stand easy,” he said, raising his voice to be sure Schofield heard him, too. “That’s one of ours. Or one of Martindale’s, anyway. The recognition code they radioed checks out.”

With a shrug, Nadia slid her 9mm Walther P99 pistol back into her shoulder holster. Whack did the same with his M1911A1 .45 Colt. “Any word on what this is about?” he asked.

“No idea,” Brad said shortly. “We’re not due for a resupply mission.”

“Additional supplies would arrive by road anyway,” Nadia pointed out. Her lips thinned. “Sending in a helicopter like this is very conspicuous. It risks giving away our position.”

Shrugging, Brad pointed out, “Campers that hear the noise will probably write it off as a Forest Service aircraft up looking for poachers. Or flying on fire watch.” Privately, he crossed his fingers. With half the U.S. Air Force probably tasked with hunting for them, they couldn’t count on staying concealed here for much longer. But it would be nice to fly out because they had somewhere else to go… and not because their cover was blown.

The sound of the helicopter’s twin engines ramped up suddenly as a black shape without any visible navigation lights swept low overhead. It slowed down and spun through a half circle, flaring in to land not far away. Its rotor wash sent dead grass and dust flying.

Through eyes narrowed against the rotor-blown debris, Brad identified the helicopter’s type. It was a Bell 429 Global Ranger. Blessed with a fairly long range and able to carry up to six passengers plus a pilot, the helicopter was a favorite with police forces and emergency medical evacuation services. This one, painted entirely in black, belonged to Scion.

His eyes opened wider as he recognized the two men who climbed down out of the helicopter’s passenger compartment. One, with longish gray hair and neatly trimmed gray beard, was Kevin Martindale. The other, moving a touch awkwardly in his cumbersome exoskeleton and life-support backpack, was his father, retired lieutenant general Patrick McLanahan.

Brad and the others moved to meet them.

Smiling broadly through his helmet’s clear visor, his father gave him a quick hug, did the same for Nadia, and then vigorously shook Macomber’s hand. In contrast, Martindale greeted them with a rueful nod.

“Jesus, Dad,” Brad said, “I’m really glad to see you. But how the heck did you get here?”

The older McLanahan shrugged. “By one of Mr. Martindale’s private jets to a little, out-of-the-way airport in Saskatchewan first. That helicopter brought us the rest of the way.” His teeth flashed white in the darkness. “Breaking quite a few FAA and Customs regulations in the process, of course.”

“No shit,” Macomber interjected. He looked the two new arrivals up and down with a critical eye. “Which makes me wonder why on God’s green earth you two decided to risk this little jaunt? Hell, Mr. Martindale, you have a huge bull’s-eye painted on your back by that bitch Stacy Anne Barbeau. I haven’t checked the FBI list lately, but my guess is that you’re Public Enemy Number One.”

“Not quite,” Martindale said with a forced grin. “Since the president now knows that the general here is most definitely alive and not dead, I’ve apparently been demoted to Public Enemy Number Two.”

Brad stared at them.

His father nodded. “It seems I’ve been resurrected, son.”

“Does Gryzlov know this?” Nadia demanded. She looked deeply worried. And with reason, since the Russian president hated the older McLanahan for killing his own father in a retaliatory bombing raid years ago — a hatred that sometimes carried him far beyond the point of sanity. In the not-so-distant past, Gennadiy Gryzlov had even been willing to threaten all-out nuclear war with both the United States and Poland to avenge himself on the general.

“Not yet,” Martindale assured her. “From what we know, the news is still closely confined to Barbeau’s innermost circle.”

The implications of that flashed through Brad’s mind. If Martindale had learned something only a few people close to the president knew, that must mean he now had a source on the inside — a very highly placed source.

His father saw the look of realization on his face and nodded slightly. “Loose lips, son,” he cautioned.

Sink ships, Brad remembered. He closed his mouth.

“Which makes this stunt even dumber,” Macomber argued. “If you’ve got something to discuss with us, why not stick to secure video links?”

“Ordinarily, I’d agree with you,” Martindale said with a wry glance at Patrick McLanahan. “But the general here thinks otherwise. And, as you undoubtedly know, he can be a very persuasive man.”

Macomber looked interested. “Really?” He turned to Brad’s father. “So, what did you do? Pull a gun on him?”

“No guns were involved,” Martindale said primly. “He simply pointed out — correctly, I fear — that the situation is now so critical that the two of us can no longer afford to stay safely removed from the action.”

Brad felt cold. “What’s changed?” he asked. “By wiping out that air base, we reduced Gryzlov’s striking power and drastically narrowed his options, right? How is that a bad thing?”

“It’s not,” his father said quickly. “What has changed is our appreciation of how far out in left field President Barbeau’s preconceptions and prejudices have led her.” Quickly, he outlined her belief that everything happening was part of a covert war between himself and Martindale… a war supposedly aimed on his part at either killing her or driving her from office. And her consequent determination to sit back and do nothing while they fought it out.

“Christ, she’s just as nuts as Gryzlov,” Brad said in disgust.

“Barbeau may be strategically blind, cowardly, and wholly self-absorbed, but she is not clinically insane,” Martindale disagreed. Then he shrugged. “Though in this particular case, I suppose that may well be a difference without much real-world significance.”

Nadia frowned. “But when your FBI learns that the Russians now own Regan Air Freight, won’t that open her eyes to the truth?”

“Unfortunately, that’s not likely to happen anytime soon. And certainly not in time for it to matter,” Patrick McLanahan said.

“Why not?”

Martindale smiled wryly. “Because Gennadiy Gryzlov turns out not to be a complete fool, Major Rozek. At least not in this case. You see, we’ve managed to identify his go-between, a Swiss investment banker named Willem Daeniker. By now, I’ve no doubt the FBI has the same information.”

“So?” Nadia asked. “How is this a problem?”

“It’s a problem because this man Daeniker very conspicuously flew to Warsaw yesterday evening,” Martindale explained. “And now he’s vanished without a trace. None of my operatives or those of your country’s internal security agency have been able to pick up his trail.”

Brad swore softly. “So when the FBI starts checking up on him…”

“It’ll look very likely that Daeniker was working for Mr. Martindale. Or the Polish government. Or both of them,” his father finished for him.

“Sucks when your enemy has a plan,” Macomber commented sourly. He shook his head. “Okay, then it’s basically down to just us and the Russians — and whoever’s unlucky enough to get caught between us.”

“Looks that way,” Patrick agreed.

“Sitting around here on our asses isn’t going to pull those enemy war robots off their next planned target,” Macomber said. “We’ve got Gryzlov’s attention now. So I figure we should get out there and wriggle around. Let’s make them come to us for a change.”

“Use your team as bait, you mean?” Martindale asked.

Macomber shrugged. “Well, yeah.”

“If we show ourselves openly, all we do is confirm all of Barbeau’s insinuations,” Brad pointed out, though he did so unwillingly. Everything told him they were running out of time and options. “We’d play right into her hands.”

His father nodded. “That might still be worth it, if it lured the Russians out into the open. But it won’t. For all his many sordid sins and faults, Gennadiy Gryzlov isn’t stupid. He won’t send his robots into an obvious trap… not unless the potential payoff is a lot higher than anything we can believably offer.”

“And maybe not even then,” Martindale commented. “Barbeau’s clearly had the same idea. She didn’t dump all of Sky Masters’ top engineers and scientists into that detention camp up in Idaho just for show. She’s using them as bait of her own.”

“For us, though,” Brad said. “Not for Gryzlov.” He shrugged. “She must have thought we’d try to rescue Boomer and the others on our own.”

“In this case, her motivations don’t matter,” Martindale said. “Nor does the worm on the hook have any say over which particular fish tries to swallow it. What matters is that Gryzlov has so far passed up what would be a golden opportunity to slaughter some of America’s topflight aircraft and weapons designers… because it’s so plainly a trap.”

“I do not believe that you and General McLanahan came all this way to recite yet another litany of what we cannot or must not do,” Nadia said evenly. Her eyes flashed a warning. “Or am I wrong about that?”

Patrick smiled. “You’re not wrong.” The exoskeleton supporting him whirred as he shrugged his shoulders. “Whack’s idea of setting a trap isn’t that far off base. It’s picking the spot that will be difficult. The only sure way to ambush Gryzlov’s robots is to figure out their next target in advance… in time to position your CIDs to nail them.”

Macomber snorted. “Hell, General, thanks for sharing that brilliant tactical insight. Got any others for us? Like ‘friendly fire, isn’t’? or ‘the easy way is always mined’?” He grunted when Nadia drove a sharp elbow into his side.

Brad hid a grin. Nadia’s tolerance for sarcasm, except for her own, was sometimes severely limited. He stepped between the two of them. “I think there’s a little more to my dad’s thinking than that, Whack.”

“There is.” Patrick nodded. “Or at least I hope so, anyway.” He looked at them all. “What we need to do is get inside Gryzlov’s mind. He may be orchestrating this war through that private mercenary outfit he’s created, but it’s still a one-man show. When it comes down to it, he has the final say on where those robots will strike next.”

“Maybe so. But I’ve been batting about point-zero-zero-zero when it comes to figuring out what that asshole plans,” Brad said unhappily. “I was the one who was sure he’d hit Sky Masters next, remember?” He knew his voice showed his frustration.

“And we all agreed with you,” Nadia reminded him. She took his hand in hers, offering what solace she could in front of the others. “It was a reasonable deduction.”

His father nodded sympathetically. “What Winston Churchill once said about Russia goes double for Gennadiy Gryzlov. ‘I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.’”

Nadia swung back to the older McLanahan. “But that is not the end of what Churchill said, is it?” she said suddenly.

“No, Major Rozek,” he agreed. “Though it is the part of the quote that most people remember, even if it was just the setup for the punch line. The rest goes like this: ‘But perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest.’”

Brad shrugged. “Sure, Dad. But Gryzlov sees anything that weakens the U.S. as being in Russia’s national interest. So that doesn’t narrow things down much.”

“Actually, it does,” Martindale said. “But only if you look beyond the purely military aspect of his operations.”

“Just fricking great. Here comes the lecture on politics,” Macomber said, rolling his eyes.

“I’ll try to make it painless, Colonel,” Martindale assured him dryly. “Even if doing so means using small words. The concept is fairly simple as it is. Gryzlov’s secret war has definitely damaged our country’s armed forces. But it also threatens Stacy Anne Barbeau’s reelection campaign by making her look weak and ineffectual. And that is very definitely not in Russia’s best interest.”

“Because if she loses, Gryzlov will face a much tougher American president,” Brad realized.

Martindale nodded. “I’ve talked to Governor Farrell several times now. His reputation as a militaristic hard-liner has been greatly exaggerated by the press. But there is no doubt that he holds a much more realistic view of Russia and its leaders than President Barbeau.”

Nadia looked at him. “But will she lose the election?”

“Nothing is certain in politics, Major. But I’ve watched a lot of campaigns in my life… and I know when the people on the inside are getting desperate. And that’s what I see happening to Stacy Anne’s outfit.” Martindale shook his head. “Take, for example, this phony story she’s peddling about a secret U.S. Special Operations Force that supposedly blasted the airport at Moab. Even if she gets a short-term boost in her poll numbers, it won’t last long. You can’t keep secrets like that, not in this day and age. Too many people know the truth. Before too long, someone inside the Pentagon or SOCOM itself is almost sure to leak that the story is false. And then, as soon as Grzylov’s robots launch another attack, she’ll end up worse off politically than she was before.”

“There’s also the factor that the Russians are running out of military and economic targets they can hit safely,” Patrick said. “Our base defenses have been hardened. Our warships are mostly at sea, out of reach now that you’ve blown their cruise-missile aircraft to bits. Plus, the Air Force has finally gotten smart. They’re flying surveillance drones over our defense plants and weapons labs.”

Nadia frowned. “Their war robots could still go after other civilian targets. Anything from shopping malls to major sporting events… and everything in between.”

“To create more terror?” Martindale asked. She nodded. “That is certainly possible. But again, attacks aimed at striking terror into the American people will only make Barbeau’s defeat in November more likely.”

“But do the Russians understand this?”

“In my experience,” Martindale replied, “the Russians have a very firm grasp of American politics, especially where it touches on their interests.” With a rueful look, he continued. “Certainly, Moscow’s higher echelons understand us a lot better than a great many people in Washington understand the Russians.”

Brad considered that. “So you think Gryzlov will go after a political target next.”

His father nodded firmly. “It’s his next logical move.” His voice was level. “And given the situation right now, there is effectively only one vital American political target left for him to strike.”

Brad began to see where Martindale and his father were going. So far, Gryzlov’s covert operations had achieved significant tactical victories. But those same victories were damaging his own strategic goals by boosting the odds that Stacy Anne Barbeau would lose to Farrell — the last man the Russian leader could expect to dance to his tune. And while Gryzlov wasn’t a moron… he was ruthless, violent, and willing to run enormous risks to achieve his desired ends. Which meant—

“Oh shit,” he muttered. “You think the Russians are going to kill Governor Farrell.”

Martindale nodded grimly. “His murder would set off a political firestorm.”

“But won’t his party simply nominate another candidate?” Nadia asked.

“There would be nothing simple about it,” Martindale said tersely. “Farrell was the only one genuinely positioned to give Barbeau a run for her money in November. With him gone, his party will divide into a dozen warring factions. I don’t see any of the other possible contenders beating her.”

“Especially not if she can blame his death on us,” Brad said slowly.

His father nodded. “Which is why we need to find your team a new operating base considerably farther south. And why Mr. Martindale and I need to borrow Captain Schofield and his scouts right away.”