Price of Duty

by Dale Brown

  With a muted flourish, Scion’s chief clicked to another version of the second satellite photo. This one showed dozens of red circles scattered across the mountain’s rugged slopes and the narrow valleys around it. “By very, very carefully comparing every square meter of terrain captured in these two separate images, our people were able to spot places where some kind of change—man-made change—had taken place. In some cases, the indications are as small as a boulder shifted a meter or so out of place, or a section of rock or soil raised slightly above where it was in the original images.”

  “Those are camouflaged weapons bunkers,” Macomber said grimly.

  “Most are. The others are probably sensor posts and concealed surface-to-air missile positions,” Martindale agreed. He looked around the table again. “Which raises the very real question of whether we stand any chance of successfully attacking Perun’s Aerie at all.”

  Brad frowned. “There’s no way we can hit it successfully from the air,” he said. “No combat aircraft or drone in our inventory has the range and penetration ability, let alone the ordnance load needed to do the job.”

  “Hell, even a big-ass tactical nuke would probably just scratch the surface,” Macomber muttered.

  Brad nodded. “Well, yeah, Whack, and as it happens, we’re fresh out of nuclear weapons anyway.” He saw Piotr Wilk and Nadia exchange glances. “Aren’t we?”

  Wilk shrugged. “Sadly, that is true, Captain. After winning our freedom from the communists, we relied entirely on the nuclear umbrella provided by the United States.” He smiled lopsidedly. “It’s only now beginning to occur to some of us that we may need to fill that rather large gap in our defenses. But acquiring such weapons is a much longer-term project.”

  “In which case, we really only have one option,” Brad said quietly. “And that’s a bolt-out-of-the-blue attack by Iron Wolf CIDs flown in on the XCV-62 Ranger.”

  “Oh, man,” Macomber growled. “I knew I should have upped my fucking life insurance when I had the chance.”

  IRON WOLF FLIGHT LINE

  SEVERAL HOURS LATER

  Brad escorted Martindale into the large bomb-resistant hangar used to prep Iron Wolf aircraft and CIDs for combat missions. The massive concrete-and-reinforced-steel building was a sea of purposeful activity and noise.

  In one section of the hangar, an Iron Wolf ground crew swarmed over the black, batwinged XCV-62 Ranger, checking the stealth STOL transport’s engines, avionics, and other systems. Off to the side, Whack Macomber and Captain Ian Schofield were putting together an assortment of small arms and other weapons. Schofield and four of his most experienced recon troopers were going along to act as a close-in protection force for the Ranger while it was on the ground inside Russia. And over in the far corner, Charlie Turlock was supervising a team of technicians who were hard at work readying two of the squadron’s remaining CID combat robots.

  Brad spotted Nadia Rozek standing at the foot of the ladder Charlie was using. The dark-haired Polish Special Forces officer had her hands planted firmly on her hips. She also had an obstinate, thoroughly exasperated expression on her face.

  “Uh-oh,” he murmured.

  Martindale saw where he was looking and winced. “Let me guess,” he said. “You didn’t tell her?”

  “I was going to,” Brad said, trying very hard not to sound like a kid explaining that his dog really had wolfed down his homework. “But other high-priority stuff kept coming up.”

  Nadia swung toward him as he came up. “Charlie says that she is piloting one of the CIDs, instead of me.” Her eyes flashed angrily. “This mission is important to my homeland and to the entire alliance. It is my duty as a Polish officer to participate in this attack! Besides, you know very well that I have significant battle experience in these machines!”

  Gracefully, Charlie slid down the ladder and dropped lightly onto the hangar floor. “Hi, Brad. Mr. Martindale,” she said coolly. “I’ve tried telling Major Rozek the assignments are set, but she insists on bucking the question up to higher authority—which I guess in this case would be you, right? Since this is your plan and all?”

  Brad nodded. Don’t turn and run, he told himself. That would be cowardly. Besides, the way his ribs still ached, Nadia would just catch him in the first few meters. “Ms. Turlock is right, Nadia. I need you as my copilot and systems operator for the Ranger. No one else can do the job. No one else in the world has the flight time or experience with the bird that you do.”

  “I can do both,” Nadia insisted stubbornly. “The CIDs will only go into action once we’ve landed. And I can have the machine up and running in minutes.”

  “And what happens if you get killed or wounded in the fight?” Charlie said, not sugarcoating it. “CIDs aren’t invincible, after all. Then Brad’s stuck on his own trying to fly that aircraft out through an alerted Russian air-defense network. Hey, believe me, I get why you want to be in at the sharp end. Kicking Gryzlov’s computer goons in the gonads should be sweet. But this is about sound tactics and focus. Putting our copilot into ground combat only adds another risk factor to the chances of mission failure.”

  Smart woman, Brad thought. Focusing on what was best for the mission was the surest bet to disarm Nadia’s fierce combativeness and otherwise almost unyielding sense of patriotism and national honor.

  Sure enough, though she still appeared irritated, Nadia also looked a bit more thoughtful.

  It was time for him to chime in, Brad decided. “This is going to be a tough flight,” he said. “Basically, our only chance to penetrate Russian airspace undetected is to go in really low and stay low most of the way—and do the same on our way out. That’s nearly seventeen hundred nautical miles round trip. And low-altitude flying eats fuel fast, so we’re gonna be operating right at the outside edge of our endurance. Which means I need to put everything I’ve got into keeping the Ranger flying right down the zone.” He shook his head. “If we get jumped, I need you there beside me, running our defenses. Otherwise, we’re toast.”

  Nadia grimaced, knowing he was right. As a stealth transport aircraft, the XCV-62 carried no offensive weapons—no air-to-air missiles, bombs, or even guns. Its defenses consisted entirely of the SPEAR system, chaff and flare dispensers, and two ADM-160B miniature air-launched decoys fitted in a small internal bay.

  “Besides, Whack and I have fought as a team before, in Iran and Iraq and a bunch of other godforsaken places,” Charlie went on. “So we know each other’s moves inside out and that boosts our combat efficiency.”

  This time, Nadia bobbed her head slightly, though it was a grudging, very reluctant nod. “Perhaps, you are right,” she said stiffly, through gritted teeth. “Though I wish—”

  “Ms. Turlock, what on earth are you doing to these Cybernetic Infantry Devices?” Martindale interrupted, sounding appalled. He was staring up at the two twelve-foot-tall CIDs, which looked even more spindly and skeletal than usual. The Iron Wolf techs were busy removing whole sections of hexagonal-shaped thermal tiles and the wafer-thin electrochromatic plates layered over them.

  Charlie shrugged. “We’re stripping their thermal-adaptive camouflage and chameleon camouflage systems.”

  “And why in God’s good name would you do that?” Martindale demanded. “Right before an attack on a heavily defended Russian base?”

  “For three reasons,” Charlie said patiently. She held up one finger. “Number one, because of snow. Have you seen the most recent satellite photos of that area, Mr. Martindale?” He nodded. “Then you know, sir, that the whole area is practically hip-deep in snow right now,” she said. “And the one thing those really nifty chameleon systems cannot do is hide footprints.”

  “Oh,” the gray-haired man said, sounding flummoxed.

  Charlie nodded. “Yeah. Oh. See, I don’t care how dumb your average Russian sentry is, I kind of figure the sight of a bunch of big footprints appearing in the snow will clue him into the fact that something bad is going down. Which brings me to reason number
two.” She held up a second finger. “It’s cold there. Really, really cold.”

  “As in too cold for the CID’s thermal-adaptive tiles to function efficiently,” Martindale guessed, frowning now.

  “Yep,” she said. “There’s no way we can cool the tiles down to match those external temps. Not without draining the CID’s power supply in minutes.”

  “And your third reason?” Martindale asked.

  “Weight,” Charlie said simply. She shrugged her slender shoulders. “See there’s no way we can expect a field resupply mission on this gig. Even if the terrain and tactical situation allowed it, there’s no room for one of those handy little Wolf ATV cargo carriers in the Ranger. So Whack and I are going to have to hump in every bit of ammo, spare batteries, and all the other gear we’ll need right from the get-go. Dumping the camouflage systems nets us the extra load-carrying capacity we require.”

  “Captain McLanahan?” a voice called across the hangar.

  Brad turned and saw an Iron Wolf communications specialist trotting toward him. “What’s up, Yeats?” he asked.

  “This signal came in by radio,” the specialist answered, handing him a message flimsy. “We just finished decrypting it.”

  Puzzled, Brad took the sheet. They were at a base with multiple secure telephone and data links. Why would anyone fall back on radio to send a message here? His eyes widened slightly as he read the signal.

  He looked back up at the communications tech. “You’ve authenticated this?”

  Yeats nodded. “Yes, sir. It checks out.”

  Nadia moved closer to him. “What’s going on, Brad?”

  “This is an urgent signal from President Wilk,” he said, raising his voice slightly so the others could hear. “There’s a new Russian cyberattack in progress. Cell-phone, Internet, and landline communications networks all across Poland and the rest of the AFN are crashing.”

  “Ah, crap,” he heard Charlie Turlock mutter.

  “You’ve got that right. Apparently, we’re back to satellite phones and radio, until CERT teams can find and neutralize the viruses that are locking things up,” Brad told them grimly.

  Gryzlov had just landed another solid punch. Without reliable communications, everything from regular day-to-day business to public safety was in jeopardy. Robbed of the ability to call for help, innocent people were going to die—from heart attacks and strokes left untreated until it was too late, from house fires that spread unchecked, or from any one of a dozen other kinds of accidents where minutes could make the difference between life and death.

  “What are the president’s orders?” Nadia asked.

  “We’re authorized to strike the Russian cyberwar complex at the earliest possible moment,” Brad replied. Fighting the weight of the responsibility he’d just been handed, he straightened up to his full height. “Which means we go tonight.”

  THIRTY-ONE

  NEAR OSTROWO, NORTH OF POWIDZ, POLAND

  THAT EVENING

  GRU major Leonid Usenko carefully lit another cigarette before turning back to the English-language crossword puzzle he was wrestling with this evening. It was from an American newspaper, the Wall Street Journal. He preferred the American style to those published in the British papers. The English crosswords, he thought, were maddeningly indirect, full of mysterious allusions that meant nothing to those who hadn’t been educated at one of that nation’s elite public schools, like Eton or Harrow. American puzzles, while often cleverly constructed, were far more decipherable—requiring only a solid knowledge of the language, American idiom, and popular culture.

  For a moment, he considered sharing this insight with Captain Artem Mikheyev. The other intelligence officer sat at a table just on the other side of the tiny living room of the small lakeside vacation cabin they’d bought through a series of cutouts. But then he reconsidered. Mikheyev was hunched over his laptop computer, grumbling and swearing about something under his breath. One of the problems with any prolonged covert surveillance mission, especially when it involved living in relatively tight quarters, was that tempers naturally frayed over time. The younger man, especially, was feeling the strain. As a cybernetics and computer expert, he was supposed to have been on his way back to Moscow and his regular duties weeks ago. Instead, he had been ordered to stay on with Usenko and Rusanov while they maintained a distant watch on the Iron Wolf base and its activities.

  Usenko bent back over his crossword. What was a seven-letter word for “a Roman legionary officer”? he wondered. Was it a—

  Suddenly the front door burst open. Both Usenko and Mikheyev looked up in alarm. Usenko shot to his feet. “What the hell . . . ?”

  Captain Konstantin Rusanov hurried inside and slammed the door shut behind him, breathless with excitement. The short, dark-haired man had been on duty observing activities at the airfield from a concealed vantage point. “Something’s up,” he panted. “The base is under complete lockdown, with troops patrolling along every meter of the perimeter fence. And the Iron Wolf mercenaries just launched an aircraft, of a type I’ve never seen before—some sort of new stealth craft from the look of it. It took off and then flew due north.”

  Usenko shoved his half-finished crossword puzzle aside. “Did you get a picture?”

  Rusanov nodded. He dropped into the chair opposite the major and slid his smartphone across. On the surface, the phone looked very much like any of the major brands. Only close examination would reveal that its built-in camera was far more powerful than anything on the civilian market and that it included encryption technology that was beyond cutting-edge.

  Usenko expanded the image with his fingers. His subordinate was right. At first glance, the batwing-shaped aircraft bore similarities to the American B-2 Spirit stealth bombers. But there were subtle differences. He looked up. “How big would you say this plane is?”

  “Offhand?” Rusanov shrugged. “Smaller than a big strategic bomber, I would guess. But significantly larger than a fighter.”

  The major pursed his lips. That was an odd size, he thought—neither fish nor fowl. Well, perhaps the experts in Moscow could make something of it. “We’d better report this at once,” he said.

  Mikheyev got up from his chair. “That will be a problem,” he said gloomily. “Our Internet service is down. And so are all cell-phone and landline networks. I can’t find any connections anywhere.”

  “You’re kidding,” Rusanov blurted out.

  “Unfortunately, I’m not,” Mikheyev said. His mouth twisted in a crooked, sardonic smile. “I think our glorious Q Directorate comrades are up to new cyberwar tricks.”

  “Shit.” Usenko took a long drag at his cigarette and then stubbed it out with an angry gesture. “Now would be a damned good time to have a satellite phone.”

  The others nodded. Unfortunately, the geniuses at the Ministry of State Security had prohibited the use of satellite phones by deep-cover operational teams, especially those tasked with spying on the Iron Wolf mercenaries and their CID combat robots. Two GRU agents taken prisoner last year in Poland and exchanged at the end of the brief shooting war had blamed their capture on the use of a satellite phone near one of those terrifying machines.

  “If the Poles can’t clear their communications networks sooner, we’ll have to report this during our next scheduled radio-contact window,” Usenko decided. He checked his watch. He scowled. “Which won’t open for almost another four hours.”

  Their GRU team had a high-powered radio transmitter equipped to send compressed encrypted transmissions. Since even a short signal might still be picked up by Polish counterintelligence, it was a risky procedure. It was also a poor way of trying to send actionable intelligence. For security reasons, Moscow only listened for transmissions during certain set times. Signals sent outside those narrow communications windows would be ignored. They might even be treated as evidence that the Poles had captured Usenko and his subordinates and were trying to feed false information to Russia.

  KEMIJÄRVI AIRFIELD,
NORTHERN FINLAND

  SOMETIME LATER

  Two hours and nine hundred nautical miles after departing Powidz, Brad McLanahan brought the XCV-62 down for a smooth landing on Kemijärvi’s fourteen-hundred-meter-long runway. He taxied off onto the apron, where a Scion maintenance, security, and refueling team waited.

  This airport, just inside the Arctic Circle and deep amid Lapland’s forests and lakes, was a good choice for an interim refueling stop. Used mainly by private jets, Kemijärvi was also an Arctic test site for UAVs, unmanned aerial vehicles, operated by Sky Masters and other manufacturers. Which meant that oddly configured aircraft were a relatively common sight here, far less likely to attract unwanted attention. As it was, their flight into the field had been logged as a cargo flight carrying equipment for the region’s timber industry.

  Quickly, he and Nadia Rozek ran through their postlanding checklists. Then he clicked the intercom, opening a channel to the troop compartment behind the cockpit. “How are things back there?”

  “No problems,” Whack Macomber told him from inside one of the two CIDs squeezed into the compartment alongside Schofield, his four commandos, and their weapons and gear. “Other than Charlie pestering me to ask if there’s time for a quick drink at the airport bar.”

  Brad smiled. “Maybe on the way back.” He glanced down at the fueling status indicator shown on one of his MFDs. “We should be gassed up and back in the air in about fifteen minutes or so.”

  Beside him, Nadia finished typing a short message on her left-hand display. She hit the send button. “I have informed Powidz of our arrival here and estimated time of departure,” she reported. Seconds later, her MFD pinged, signaling the receipt of a new transmission via satellite downlink. Her fingers flew over the virtual keyboard, ordering their computer to decode the incoming signal. “It’s an intelligence update from Martindale,” she said. “So far, the Russians are sticking precisely to their announced schedule of air-defense exercises.”