by Jack Carr
The pilots donned their emergency oxygen masks, took a few deep breaths to ensure a good seal, and checked the internal microphones. Then, with a concerned glance at one another, they depressurized the cabin to a cacophony of master caution warnings and audio alerts. Both pilots had added layers of clothing to protect them from the frigid air. The men in the rear stood in single file, the first two inside the baggage area and the rest lined up behind them in the aft lavatory and into the cabin. Farkus reached up and activated the infrared strobe mounted on his helmet and each man followed suit. Soon all eight strobes flashed inside the cabin, which was disorienting to say the least. The flashing lights, invisible to anyone not wearing night-vision equipment, would help the jumpers keep track of one another in the darkness until they could stack up and turn them off; bad guys sometimes had night-vision devices as well.
One minute out, the whine of the twin turbofans abated significantly, slowing the jet’s airspeed to one that wouldn’t rip the jumpers and their gear to pieces when they exited the aircraft. With the aircraft trimmed to just above stall speed, the cabin differential pressure was equalized to allow Farkus to turn the handle and open the aft baggage door, which slid up along internal tracks. He attempted to open it slowly, but the hurricane-force winds snatched the latch from his hands and slammed it open so hard that he thought it would be ripped from its hinges; the engineers in Savannah had done their jobs well and it stayed attached to the plane. The cargo door on the G550 lies just below the left engine nacelle at the rear of the aircraft, which meant that the risk of impacting the fuselage or any other part of the aircraft upon exit is minimal.
The quiet ride suddenly became deafeningly loud. The combination of the howling winds and the jet engine just above the hatch drowned out any chance of verbal communication. The cold air was equally shocking to the senses, even with all the layers of specialized clothing. Farkus studied the open hatch as well as his ATAK screen in sequence, the NODs exaggerating his head movements as he did so. He pantomimed a countdown from five seconds. Then, without hesitation, he exited through the open hatch into the darkness, each jumper following as closely behind him as the cramped space allowed.
The sound of the jet engine was overwhelming as Reece passed underneath but it faded away almost instantly as the aircraft sped into the night. He found a stable body position and deployed his primary parachute. The small pilot chute unfurled the nylon canopy and violently arrested Reece’s free fall. After confirming that his canopy had deployed as designed, he scanned for the flashing strobes that indicated the position of his teammates. One by one he counted them until he’d confirmed that the other jumpers’ chutes had opened. They didn’t bunch up, to avoid creating a radar signature. Instead they switched off their IR strobes and flew in a loose formation behind Farkus’s lead, twenty-five yards apart. After the exhilaration of free fall and the dread of ensuring everyone was accounted for, Reece concentrated on maintaining his position behind Devan. He could see Edo’s head and tail. The dog was strapped into Devan’s harness, and Reece couldn’t help but wonder what the canine was thinking as he descended from the heavens.
As they glided toward the objective, Reece made tiny course corrections by reaching up and pulling on the parachute’s toggles, their forward momentum carrying them deeper into Russian territory and toward their target. Despite the cold, it was quite peaceful, the only sound the wind howling at their backs. Reece looked down and, below his boots, saw only darkness.
According to the ATAK screen, they were on course and maintaining sufficient speed and altitude to make it to Medny Island with a bit of air to spare. His oxygen appeared to be flowing normally and his mind was clear and alert. All Reece had to do for now was follow the leader. So far, despite the long odds, everything had gone according to plan, but as Reece knew all too well, no plan survives first contact with the enemy.
CHAPTER 70
40,000 feet above the Bering Sea
IT TOOK ALL OF Liz Riley’s significant body strength to wrench the aft baggage door into the closed position. Thankfully, when she wasn’t flying airplanes, she was moving large stacks of iron in the weight room. She knelt in the baggage area in silent prayer, asking God to watch over the avenging angels who had just leapt into the darkness. After a few moments of quiet reflection, she unhooked the safety line she’d rigged to prevent her falling into the abyss and made her way back to the cockpit. The captain immediately began the repressurization of the cabin and cranked the onboard climate control to its highest heat setting. Fifteen minutes later, both pilots were able to take off their oxygen masks and lose a couple of layers.
Making a hard turn off their flight plan was bound to raise a few eyebrows, so they carefully drifted back toward the center of their course and resumed their airspeed and altitude. They’d continue a full forty minutes past the drop, at which point Liz would call Anchorage Oceanic Control and report cabin pressurization issues. She would request a rerouting to Adak, where they could land and have the system inspected by maintenance crews. That would put them as close as possible to their emergency rendezvous location without arousing too much suspicion.
As the jet roared through the night sky, Liz couldn’t help but return to her faith. She whispered a quiet prayer to the patron saint of paratroopers: “Saint Michael the Archangel, defend them in battle, be their protection against the enemy…”
* * *
Medny Island, Russia
Aleksandr Zharkov was in the bunker’s command center, where the weapon was controlled. Three uniformed operators manned the computer stations, each of them wearing headsets with lip microphones. One of them was in contact with the nation’s air defense network, which operated early warning systems that dated back to the Soviet era. A jet traveling nearby had strayed a few miles from its course, putting it at the limit of the Air Defense Identification Zone. It was time. Grant Larue, his SVR-placed illegal, never failed to provide the highest-quality intelligence. He was running his own source inside the White House, the American president’s own chief of staff, who believed he was passing information to a trusted friend who had a high-paying job waiting for him when he left politics. A useful idiot…
The weapon system on this island was the largest of its kind in the world and, so far, the tests had been extremely successful. The underground generators, capacitors, and dish emitters formed the basis of a directional EMP, designed to render the technological advantages of modern armies useless in an instant. An EMP is an electromagnetic pulse, a short burst of invisible energy. EMPs can be caused by coronal mass ejections from the sun, lightning, or nuclear detonations, varying significantly in size and scope. Though EMPs are harmless to humans, they can cause permanent damage to electronic components.
The system in place on Medny Island was a proof of concept, one that would activate an invisible dome-like shield above the area. It was Russia’s experimental answer to the U.S. missile defense system. Guided missiles, aircraft, and even drones could be knocked out of the sky instantly. Mobile systems could send an entire battle space back into the nineteenth century while larger fixed weapons such as this one could potentially shield entire installations or cities from nuclear attack. Their only challenge at this point was projecting the pulse far enough into the atmosphere to interrupt nuclear-armed reentry vehicles. This system effectively protected the entire island up to an altitude of one thousand meters.
Zharkov glanced at the watch on his wrist before speaking. “Move the men inside the bunkers. In twenty minutes, begin pulses every sixty seconds.”
“It will be done.”
The contractors, their radios, and night-vision devices would be shielded inside the hardened bunkers while the weapon was in use. Once they had confirmation that the invaders were on the ground, Aleksandr would let slip his hired dogs of war.
CHAPTER 71
Medny Island, Russia
REECE COULD SEE THE island now, a long white blur against the dark sea below. He trusted their equipment
and his belief in Farkus’s abilities was near absolute, but it was still a tremendous relief to see dry land. He thought about the four SEAL operators who had drowned during Operation Urgent Fury in Grenada. No matter how hard you train, Mother Nature and the enemy still get a vote.
With the island in sight, Reece began to use his toggles to fly the chute toward the LZ, following the stack of jumpers before him. He glanced down at the ATAK screen and double-checked the oversize altimeter strapped to his wrist. Then Reece’s entire world went black. He assumed that the cold had sapped the batteries in his NODs but, to be sure, he tried his go-to solution for all problems electronic: turn them off and then back on. Nothing. He flipped the NODs up and out of the way, seeing only a ghost of the illuminated image the night optics had provided seconds earlier.
The ATAK screen on his chest was as black as his NODs. Even though the device was set to the very dim night-vision mode, he should have seen at least a faint glow. He pressed the button on the side of the device. What the hell? Reece unbuckled the oxygen mask from his face, let it fall to one side, and pulled the boom mic on the Peltor headset toward his mouth. His other hand found the “talk” button through the fabric of his thermal suit.
“Spartan Two-One, this is Spartan Zero-One, over.”
Nothing.
“Any Spartan this is Zero-One, over.”
No response.
Straining, he heard a faint sound ahead, just above the howling of the wind, a human voice. The men were improvising, calling out to one another as beacons to guide them to the target. Reece pushed his earmuff headset ajar to better hear his teammates in the darkness; they risked detection by making noise but missing the target and landing in the icy waters meant certain death. Reece steered his chute by sound, following the voices in the wind.
As his eyes grew accustomed to the dark, he began to make out something in the distance; the faint white of the snow-covered island stood out in contrast to the blackness around it. Reece had spent enough time studying satellite imagery of the island to know where they were supposed to land. He was a product of an earlier era in which computers, GPS devices, and even NODs could not be depended upon. He’d been trained and mentored by Vietnam-era SEALs and had learned to navigate by terrain association. As a young frogman, Reece had lived by the map, compass, and iron sights. Those skills, ancient by the standards of today’s generation of special operators, were about to save his life.
The analog altimeter strapped to his wrist still worked, the tritium-impregnated hands sweeping slowly as he descended. Reece confirmed that he had sufficient altitude to allow him to glide into the target; he would rather come in high and turn into the wind than risk being too low. He could hear the roaring waves crashing against the island’s sheer cliff walls, which was yet another indicator that he was getting close. The wind picked up speed, pushing Reece more rapidly toward the unknown DZ. The combination of frigid air and the pounding surf made it difficult to discern the voices of his fellow team members. His course was a bit farther to the right than he intended so he tugged the toggle with his left hand. A drastic correction could be disastrous, so he was careful to make slight movements.
The island was long and narrow, resembling the far smaller but similarly configured profile of Long Island, New York. A series of high peaks ran across the center spine of the landscape, providing few, if any, suitable landing zones. Reece’s target was a saddle between two mountaintops, roughly at the island’s longitudinal center. He could make out two snow-covered mountaintops below and, as he steered toward them, he desperately hoped that they were the correct ones. His mind wasn’t on the mission now; it wasn’t on saving Hanna, finding Raife, or getting back to Katie. All of his focus was on landing his chute.
The terrain grew closer, rushing toward him as his perspective changed. Reece looked down over his boots and saw that he was officially “feet dry,” meaning he had crossed from the ocean and was over land. His mind went through a checklist, consulting the altimeter, studying the terrain, making slight course corrections, and scanning the horizon for any sign of another jumper.
He glided toward the mountains, dropping rapidly. He needed to slow down, or risk overshooting his target. He had expected the wind to die off as he approached land, but the valley created the opposite effect. It effectively formed a wind tunnel that threatened to blow him into the sea. His airspeed provided him plenty of stability but not the angle of approach that he needed. He was still fifty feet off the ground and the saddle was beginning to fall away below him as the slope plunged toward the water.
Reece pulled hard on his left toggle, which put him into a steep turn that robbed his canopy of air. He turned 180 degrees and was now landing into the wind, which should have slowed his forward progress. Instead the wind gusted harder as it raced through the saddle, threatening to blow him backward over the cliff.
He pulled as hard as he could with one arm, effectively stalling the chute so that he would crash into the side of the mountain rather than into the water. The move sent him into a steep left turn from which there was no recovery. His feet touched the mountainside and his body went flipping across the snowy face like a downhill skier crashing out of control. He felt his NODs rip from his helmet and felt the receiver of his AR burst apart despite the tape intended to hold it together. After what seemed like an eternity of tumbling through snow rock and ice, his canopy again filled with a gust of wind, dragging him over the rough ground. Reaching up, he frantically searched for the release to arrest his momentum.
Got it!
The world was suddenly still and quiet.
Shit, that hurt.
Reece lay still, looking up at the sky, feeling the cold snow on his back. He started with his toes; he could feel them, which was a good sign. He then bent his knees and arched his back. Cautiously, he twisted his spine. Then he wiggled his fingers, moved his elbows, and slowly turned his head from side to side before pushing himself up into a sitting position and reaching for the Echols rifle, which had survived the fall.
Frogman luck.
Reece stood up stiffly and slid the Echols from its padded case, observing his immediate surroundings. His NODs were gone but his helmet was still attached to his head and had probably helped save his life. His first-line gear was still attached to his body, which meant he had his pistol and blades. Without a working light to check his sniper rifle he used his fingers to explore the familiar weapon system: barrel, scope, stock, sling. Everything was in place. Whether it retained its zero remained to be seen.
Gazing up at the mountains, he pulled out a small compass to get his bearings. He was alone, in enemy territory, without a working radio, and needed to rendezvous with his team. Their loss-of-comms link-up point was just a mile to the southeast. There was no sign of any other human life.
He was alive and had a mission to complete.
Alone, in a foreign land, he moved off into the night.
I am never out of the fight.
CHAPTER 72
Medny Island, Russia
CAPTAIN KARYAVIN VASILIEVICH JOINED his men on the high ground and checked their position, arranged overlooking a choke point along the most likely avenue of approach to Deputy Director Aleksandr Zharkov’s lodge. He’d shut down the tactical EMP and patrolled to the ambush site with his seven-man team, all combat veterans of Russia’s forays into its former territories over the past decade. It would take twenty minutes for the EMP to rejuvenate and store enough power for another shot but by that time the Americans would be on the ground wondering why their high-tech gear was fried. They needed that deadly advantage over the Americans, whose technological superiority would now be reduced to useless pieces of wires and metal.
The United States had outpaced their old adversary in technological advances since the fall of the Soviet Union. The new Russian Federation could stamp out machine parts and build the ever-reliable AK, but when it came to the weapons of the Information Age, computers and microchips, Russia was not even in t
he running. That meant they had to focus on how to eliminate the technological advantages of their enemies.
Though export restricted, the NODs and lasers that adorned the team’s M4s were purchased in the United States legally by Aleksandr Zharkov’s illegals. They were then dismantled and smuggled into Russia using the deputy director’s bratva network to supply his private security detail with the best weapons and optics available. Night-vision tubes were disguised inside binoculars and M4s were disassembled and disguised as machine parts, then reassembled once safely inside the borders of Mother Russia.
The one sniper in the group cradled a Chukavin rifle chambered in 7.62x54R in his arms. A recent replacement for the revered Cold War–era Dragunov, he knew the Schmidt & Bender optic that graced its top rail was not what soldiers in the Russian military would be using. The expensive scopes were for demonstrations and show purposes. True to form, the bureaucrats would ensure that the ground pounders would be given suboptimal glass so that more of them could be fielded. What was it Stalin had said about quantity? No matter, he had his rifle, scope, and a U.S.-made forward-mounted night optic along with an IR laser. He would have preferred the Orsis T-5000 Tochnost in .338 Lapua but that could not be helped. He’d sent more than a few insurgents to their graves in Chechnya and Dagestan from behind the iconic-looking Dragunov, though having spent so much time with it, he knew the effective range only extended that of the AK by three hundred meters. This new Kalashnikov Concern Chukavin was different. With it, he’d kill his first American.