She’d have to be as skilled and elegant as Chen Mei-Li had been.
He still couldn’t believe what his spies had reported—that her lover was Zuocheng Li’s most-favored granddaughter. The two of them were proving to be incredibly valuable to him as assistants, so he wouldn’t interfere. But it made him rock hard just thinking about those two perfect young women fornicating like rabbits.
Maybe he’d find a way to have two wives.
“Zhang here,” he answered even though he didn’t recognize the phone number.
“Hello, China. This is Elayne Kasprak. I’m Zaslon. I have two-hundred-billion-ruble Russia Persona surveillance satellite, as I promise. For twenty million in hard currency. US dollars.”
Ru didn’t even know what to say.
He was just about to speak when the woman continued, “What the hell…”
Then an inarticulate scream sounded over the phone so loudly that he had to jerk the phone away. The signal cut off before he could return it to his ear.
“What was that?” Li asked.
“I’m not sure.” Was it a real offer to sell Russia’s most advanced spy satellite? It couldn’t compete with the Americans’, but it was far better than anything China had been able to design.
Or had the offer died even as it was made?
The number hadn’t been blocked.
He called his chief of security. “Find out anything you can about the number that just called my private phone and look for the name Elayne Kasprak…No, I don’t know how to spell it. Check every damn spelling and call me the second you have anything. Anything at all.”
When he hung up, General Zuocheng Li was watching him closely.
It would be such a coup if he managed to capture it. Perhaps even secure his place on the CMC enough that Li couldn’t remove him with a flick of his finger.
An intact Persona spy satellite ready to launch?
Twenty million would be a trivial price. For an asset like that, he’d pay a hundred million in a heartbeat.
But to almost have it and lose it would be a black mark from which he might never recover.
“I…think that it is a prank. But it is so strange that I want to be sure. Please, I would like your opinion as well.” And he did his best to repeat the call word for word.
Between them they puzzled over it and waited for a report.
77
The instant the call was over, Jon pulled the engines to idle and began to slalom the plane back and forth in a steep dive.
Holly had returned to the copilot’s seat and was calling out the altimeter readings from her dial.
“Thirty-five thousand. Thirty thousand. Twenty-five thousand.”
“Now,” he and Holly called out in unison.
Tim got on the radio. “Vostochny Tower. Vostochny Tower. This is Antonov AN-one-two-four military flight eight-niner. We’ve lost power and control. We are in a steep dive. I’m declaring an emergency.” His voice was rock steady because a military operator wouldn’t panic.
The tower responded immediately. “Roger Eight-niner. We have you on radar. three-zero-five kilometers north-northwest. Confirm you are declaring an emergency.”
“Confirming emergency. Engine restart failure. All gauges show sufficient fuel. We are again attempting engine restart.”
“Roger, Eight-niner. We report negative possible airfields within your glide capabilities. Keep us informed.”
“Roger, Tower.”
“Ten thousand. Now,” Holly whispered.
Jon nodded. That should place them below radar due to the Earth’s curvature at three hundred kilometers distance. But not out of radio contact yet.
“Possible restart Engine One,” Tim reported.
“Roger, Eight-niner. We’ve lost you on radar.”
Perfect.
At five thousand feet, Jon eased back on the control yoke and slowly fed power back to the engines. Causing a flame-out at this point wouldn’t be good.
“Three thousand,” Holly reported. “Two thousand…one.”
“Turning off the transponder,” Tim called from the radio operator’s station.
Now their plane was no longer producing a broadcast of its position.
“Turning off all exterior navigation lights,” Tim reported as he moved to the engineering console.
Jon fully leveled the plane and restored all the engines to cruise thrust. Then he turned east, but kept his altitude at a mere five hundred feet above the local terrain.
Then he began to pray.
78
Major William Straitsmouth pulled back on the control yoke inside his coffin at Groom Lake, Nevada. The air-conditioned white shipping container was where he usually remotely flew test planes and other drones for testing at Area 51.
He wasn’t even sure what kind of plane they were flying tonight. Based on the minimum elevations, four engines, and response time, he surmised that it was one of the big cargo lifters. But whether it was a C-17 Globemaster or a Boeing 747, he had no way to tell. It could even be one of the Russian or Chinese transports for all he knew.
His control suite was very limited compared to the usual full linkage or full instrumentation. He’d never heard of any of the big jets being set up for remote flight, so that wasn’t a clue either.
Major William Straitsmouth also didn’t know that he and his copilot, Captain Sam Thatcher, were the plane’s fifth flight crew in the last twelve hours. Other crews had departed Tucson, landed in Seattle, departed Seattle, and flown from the Aleutian Islands into Russia.
He and his copilot had taken over the flight already well into Russian airspace.
“Transponder on.”
“Transponder on,” Sam Thatcher replied from the copilot’s seat as he turned it on and dialed in the code that was listed on the mission sheet.
“Climb for twenty thousand feet.”
“Climbing.”
“Heading southwest two-two-five.”
“Two-two-five, Roger.”
Nothing much happened as they climbed to altitude.
“Any thoughts?” Sam asked him.
They’d met five years ago flying Air Force and CIA drones into Iraq and Afghanistan from Creech Air Force Base. For two years now they’d been assigned to any number of tests and missions from Groom Lake.
But William had never flown a mission like this.
“Aren’t we supposed to shoot each other if we ask any questions?”
“Yeah,” Sam admitted. “I’ll buy a bottle of Wild Turkey whiskey. You buy the pair of shot glasses. We’ll have a Turkey shoot and call it even.”
“Deal. And no, I’ve got no idea why the hell we’re flying from Russia into China. That’s gotta be bad, right?”
“Gotta be.”
“I mean, if there’s even a plane out there and this isn’t another goddamn simulation.”
“Doesn’t feel like one.”
Sam was right, it didn’t. Not that anyone was ever going to tell them what this was about. And their security clearance said they’d never be able to ask.
So, they stuck with their orders and continued straight-and-level flight at twenty-thousand feet, heading straight for China.
79
“Is that you, Eight-niner?” The question sounded over the Sit Room’s speakers.
Miranda couldn’t focus on anything since the Antonov had begun its “out of control” descent.
Lizzy had managed to position a satellite so that they could see the infrared heat blooms off the Antonov’s engines as it flew southeast toward Japan. But it had gone silent, no lights or radios. If they lost track of it, they’d never find it again in the vast wilderness.
Mike had a phone to his ear, one connected to the decoy C-5 Galaxy’s radio via an encrypted satellite link.
“This is Eight-niner,” he spoke in passable Russian. “We have successful engine restart and are back at safe altitude.”
“Excellent. Congratulations.”
“That was close. Save vodk
a for me.” Mike joked in Russian.
Miranda winced a little at the translation, but since he’d supposedly just barely survived a crash, it would probably be ignored.
“Roger, Eight-niner. Correct heading to one-seven-five.”
“Roger,” was all Mike said.
The plane didn’t turn, of course. It was under the command of two pilots out at Groom Lake who would never know that the Russians thought they were off course.
After sixty seconds, the tower called back.
“Antonov Eight-niner. We show your heading two-two-five. Please correct immediately to now one-seven-five.”
“Roger.” Mike replied and waited.
It bought them only thirty seconds this time.
“Military Eight-niner, are you experiencing control issues?”
Mike barely paused. “Negative.”
“Correct your heading immediately south-south-east. You are eight-zero kilometers to the Chinese border. Six minutes out.”
“Roger.”
There was a long pause this time. Longer than Miranda had expected.
“Eight-niner. This is Vostochny Tower. Do you have an Elayne Kasprak aboard?”
“They intercepted her phone call to the Chinese,” Drake sounded pleased, but sat forward with his hands clenched white on the light oaken table.
Miranda squeezed her own fingers together and noted how hard she had to do so to turn them white. Drake’s tone belied his mood. She wished he wouldn’t do that.
“Roger,” Mike said calmly.
“Request immediate communication with Elayne Kasprak,” the tower operator was sounding even more stressed than Drake looked.
“Roger,” Mike said, pausing briefly before he continued, “I’m afraid she busy screwing with Captain at moment.” Mike grinned like he thought he was more fluent than he was.
Miranda tried a Holly expression and glared at him.
Mike straightened up in the chair and looked much more serious.
“Eight-niner. Be aware that you will be shot down if you do not immediately alter your course and connect us with Elayne Kasprak.”
“Roger,” Mike returned to his planned script.
Lizzy spoke softly as she marked circles on the screen. “By these heat plumes, they’re scrambling fighters out of Vostochny. Too little too late. The C-5 Galaxy will be well into China by the time the Russians arrive. If they violate the border…”
“We can’t have that,” Drake was shaking his head. “Have them turn away from the border. We are not trying to start a war.”
“No,” Mike protested. “If they turn, then the Russians won’t shoot them down. If we even slow they might give our decoy flight the benefit of the doubt.”
“But—” Drake waved a hand helplessly at the screen.
“The Chinese are launching jets,” Lizzy reported. “But they’re over seven hundred kilometers away.”
“That was my phone contact,” Drake admitted. “They’re probably scrambling to protect the asset if it can make it over the border.”
“I don’t know about this,” Mike was shaking his head.
“I do,” Drake jabbed a finger at the screen. “That’s World War III. Right there. Turn it around.”
Miranda had an idea…
Perhaps.
“Mike. Say goodbye.”
“Goodbye?”
“Not to me. Over the radio.”
“Proshchay!” Then he covered the phone and looked at her.
“Wait for it.”
Drake sputtered in frustration, but the others waited.
For thirty seconds, nothing changed.
The C-5 Galaxy, beeping with the Antonov AN-124’s transponder code, continued flying toward the Chinese border.
The flight of Russian fighter jets raced from Vostochny. But they’d still be hundreds of kilometers away by the time the C-5 crossed the border.
The Chinese continued to drive north, but from much farther away.
The silence was so loud that it hurt Miranda’s ears.
“What the hell’s going on here?” The President stormed into the Sit Room like a thunderclap. “Are the Chinese and Russians at war?”
“Not yet,” Drake spoke through gritted teeth.
Roy’s face paled as he scanned the information on the monitor.
“Did your damned operation just start a war?” He practically screamed into the room. Miranda wanted to cover her ears and hide even though his ire was directed at Drake.
Instead, she forced herself to speak.
“Give them a moment more, sir,” Miranda kept her eyes on the screen.
For another twenty seconds, the room was dead silent.
Then it happened.
A pair of new missiles launched from the Russian fighter group. Except there were no jets flying quite at either track’s point of origin; exactly as she’d suspected.
“They’re too late,” Drake declared. “And they don’t have the range.”
“For any conventional missile, yes. However,” Miranda nodded toward the screen and thankfully everyone went silent again.
“Oh,” Drake whispered softly, then Lizzy nodded in reply.
It was actually incredible to watch the relative speeds.
The C-5 Galaxy was approaching the Chinese border at Mach 0.75, three-quarters the speed of sound.
The Russian jets were close to Mach 2, as were the far more distant Chinese jets.
And like a drawn pencil line, two parallel tracks were tracing in an invariant line from the cluster of Russian jets toward the C-5 Galaxy.
The lines raced away from the jets, despite their Mach 2 speed.
Lizzy kept zooming in, but the missiles’ implacable tracks were unmistakable.
When the two dots ultimately coincided with the third—the new missiles and the C-5 Galaxy—less than ten kilometers from the Chinese border, all three signals cut off immediately.
80
The Sukhoi Su-57 “Felon” fighter jets were the newest supersonic stealth jets in the entire Russian fleet. Two of the only twelve in existence had been stationed at the remote Vostochny Cosmodrome for testing.
Their testing mission was a brand-new capability to carry the Kh-47M2 Kinzhal “Dagger” missile.
In desperation to stop what the Russians thought was the defection of an Antonov AN-124 carrying a Persona satellite, the test aircraft had been ordered aloft along with the other conventional fighter jets.
The American satellite was unable to detect the Su-57s from orbit, though it could see the other five jets they were flying with.
But once it was launched from the Su-57, the Dagger missile didn’t trust to stealth but rather to speed.
In the first two-point-seven seconds, the missiles accelerated from the jets’ Mach 2 to Mach 10. The Dagger wasn’t capable of the Mach 12 claimed by the Russian media releases, but that was of little consequence.
At twelve thousand kilometers an hour, it could cross the continental US in under thirty minutes. As it was constantly maneuvering, even at hypersonic speeds, no missile defense system would be able to stop one.
It took the next eighty-three seconds to traverse the remaining three hundred kilometers.
At such speeds, a direct hit was nearly impossible, but that wasn’t necessary.
The pair of two-hundred-kilo warheads both exploded less than twenty meters from the C-5 Galaxy.
The blast had sufficient force to shred one of the wings.
But that wasn’t what destroyed the aircraft.
Even as shrapnel from the explosion penetrated the fuselage, Jeremy’s accelerometer that he’d had installed at Davis-Monthan detected the extreme jarring of the explosion. It ignited the sparkers that had been placed in every partially filled fuel tank of the KC-135 Stratotanker’s fuselage that had been placed in the cargo bay, as well as each of the C-5 Galaxy’s own mostly empty fuel tanks.
The fuel vapors ignited.
In under three-tenths of a second, the explosion o
f the fuel vapors had ripped down the length of the plane and out the length of both wings.
The twenty-thousand-gallon capacity of the KC-135’s fuel tanks and the fifty-thousand-gallon capacity of the C-5’s own tanks were now mostly filled with a thick hydrocarbon haze.
What would be a relatively safe three hundred gallons of liquid Jet A fuel was now seventy thousand gallons of highly explosive vapor.
To any meaningful measurement, it all ignited simultaneously.
The equivalent of six tons of TNT shredded the aircraft past any chance of recognition.
Any team that was sent into the remote reaches of the Russian-Chinese border of the Amur River would find little to identify, even after the deep snows had melted.
Every screen in the Groom Lake control coffin blanked simultaneously. Major Straitsmouth and Captain Thatcher would never know why.
81
On the visual tracking from the satellite circling in low Earth orbit, a massive bloom of light appeared.
“One minute and forty-seven seconds,” Miranda noted.
“What the hell was that?” President Cole dropped into his chair.
“Hypersonic Dagger missile. Probably fitted to an Su-57 Felon as we didn’t see a jet at the exact firing position.”
“You know,” Jeremy spoke up over the intercom from Seattle, “Mach 10 is pretty amazing. I wish they’d had time to use their new Avangard hypersonic glider. It can travel at Mach 27, but first the ICBM has to launch it into space so that it can fall that fast. Not enough time for the launch and reentry before it reached China, but that would have been something to see.”
“Goddamn,” Roy rubbed at his face. “I never wanted to see either of those things launched. Are our people safe?”
“Um…”
Everyone turned to Lizzy.
Miranda waited while Lizzy searched her satellite feeds. While they’d been tracking the fate of the decoy plane, they’d lost track of the primary one.
At long last, Lizzy shrugged uncertainly.
82
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