Moscow was on a roll and making things stick for a change. They’d conquered roughly two thirds of the landmass on the planet, including all of Europe, all of Africa, and all of the Middle East, in less than two years. They were quite literally in the middle of an Earth War; what was going on in America was just one example of how far Moscow had been able to spread its tentacles.
All that said, today, Ivan’s Lake seemed maddeningly empty today.
And foggy. And very stormy.
Another long hour passed. He’d soon be near the point of no return. He’d flown straight over the ocean for three hours; it would take him three hours to get back. Simple as that.
Yet he’d seen nothing but storm clouds and fog and the green tint of the radar sweep of the empty seas below him.
Then … just as his bingo light began to glow, a buzzing saturated his ears. His eyes went wide. He flipped off his FLIR set. Suddenly, he didn’t need it anymore.
The feeling. …
The original thing this time.
Something bad was coming… .
But … what was it?
He couldn’t recall ever getting this sensation from an approaching warship. So what was going on?
Then it hit.
Airplanes …
Way out here …
Coming right at him.
His hands began moving in fast motion. He clicked on his FLIR again, booted the throttle, and pushed down on the stick, all at once. The XL went into a screaming dive.
He broke through a thick cloud layer at forty-five thousand feet—and that’s when he saw them.
Two jet fighters, heading west at thirty thousand feet, both wearing red star insignias. But they weren’t the elderly mid-level Soviet-type warplanes that were seen flying above America these days. And they certainly weren’t Yak-38 jump-jet shitkickers. These planes were sleek, swept back, and modern—and Hunter knew what they were right away: Su-34 Fullback fighters, a plane that could blow most opponents out of the sky in an instant.
Now he knew what kind of warship the VLV was… .
They turned back to the east shortly after he spotted them. Although his bingo light had popped on, Hunter kept on going. Using his FLIR allowed him to stay high enough and far enough away from the two Russians that they couldn’t pick him up on radar.
He was able to study them with his fairly primitive zoom function. It got him close enough to see that these two fighters were not exactly the same. They were not typical Su-34s, but rather some highly advanced naval variation of the fearsome Fullback fighter.
One was carrying two buddy tanks under its wings where its ordnance points would usually be. The fuel in these massive extra tanks could be used to gas up the second plane while still in flight, the air-to-air refueling extending its combat range by hours.
“Fucking Commies,” Hunter said with grim admiration. “Dangerous when they put their minds to it.”
The two Russian fighters started to descend. Hunter watched them go down through the dark clouds, expertly heading toward a vessel that, while hidden by a fog bank, was obviously going full speed west, toward New York City.
Hunter hadn’t spoken to anyone at Dozer’s base since he’d begun his search, and now he had something to tell them. Just as he was about to switch on his radio, the mystery ship broke out of the fog—and finally he saw it.
It was a Very Large Vessel indeed; there was no doubt about that.
Not a battleship or a heavy cruiser.
It was an aircraft carrier… .
An enormous one.
He even knew its name. Everyone did.
The Admiral Isakov.
Hunter watched the two fighters land, both screeching in through the fog and sea spray that covered the massive flight deck. Behind it was the rest of the convoy.
Hunter turned on his wing, climbed back up to seventy-five thousand feet, and began taking long-range video of the fleet. Then he turned on his radio to call back to Dozer, his eyes fixated on the huge aircraft carrier and the ships beyond.
“How the hell are we going to stop these guys?” he wondered aloud.
Part Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
May 7
It was no myth that the Admiral Isakov was the world’s most powerful warship. In fact, it might have been the most powerful warship ever.
Not only did it carry fleets of fighters and attack copters on board, it was also outfitted with long-range offensive weapons more typically seen on battleships. Four massive batteries, two fore and two aft of the carrier’s immense, ten-story superstructure, each packing three gigantic eighteen-inch guns. Cruise missile launchers dominated both sides of the ship’s wide deck, along with a line of antiship missiles, weapons that could be quickly adapted to carry nuclear warheads.
For its own protection, dozens of SAM launchers, rotary cannons, and CADS Gatling-type weapons could be found in place all over the exterior, threatening anyone who dared come in close.
But the Isakov’s supremacy lay in its air group. The ship carried three dozen Su-34 JLR Mach 2 fighters, extremely advanced and extremely dangerous airplanes. In air-to-air mode, a Su-34 JLR could destroy enemy airplanes up to a hundred miles away. It could also shred anything in near visual distance with its pair of massive nose-mounted cannons.
But the Su-34 JLR was also a bomber—a real bomber, not just some fighter plane with bombs attached. It carried a crew of two and a cockpit big enough to have a galley, a toilet, and a bunk bed. Its fuel capacity, bumped up to huge numbers in the JLR model, gave the plane the capability to fly fifteen hundred miles, drop its bombs, and fly back again—a three-thousand-mile combat radius, incredible for a midsize warplane. A Su-34 JLR taking off from New York City could fly to Kansas, drop ten thousand pounds of conventional bombs, and return with fuel to spare. But … if this bomber went with a buddy plane, they could fly the same mission all the way to the West Coast and back, again with leftover fuel. And their weapons systems could just as easily drop poison-gas containers or biological weapons or even nukes.
The carrier was also home to three-dozen Mi-24N helicopters plus just as many cargo lifters, guaranteeing the Russian helicopter shortage in New York City was about to end. The huge Mi-24s featured enough firepower to bust up anything from tanks to entire city blocks, all while carrying up to ten fully armed combat troops. They were so big, the Isakov’s gigantic main flight-deck elevator, used to bring aircraft up and down from the ship’s hangar decks, was built to service its Mi-24s as well as other oversize Russian copters.
Most of the Isakov’s sea operations were run by computers—lots of them on the second deck. There were even some primitive robots—moving arms mostly—that chipped in on things like loading shells or remotely operating the main deck elevator. The carrier carried a crew of just four hundred, instead of the more typical four thousand. This left space for more weapons, fuel, and airplanes.
But the most unusual thing about the Isakov was who it belonged to.
The Russian Navy had been kept in the dark while the carrier was being built. This was not their boat. Constructed in the deepest secrecy per the wishes of the most shadowy group of characters inside the Kremlin, the Isakov belonged to the NKVD, the only secret police force in history to have its own aircraft carrier.
Its crew had been handpicked by the highest echelons of the NKVD and was much better trained than ordinary Russian sailors. All members had been indoctrinated to believe being insanely loyal to the Kremlin was the path to glory and that theirs was the greatest collection of ocean voyagers on the planet. The massive ship did little to dispel that notion.
This was also true for the carrier’s fighter pilots. They were members of the NKVD’s Special Naval Air Squadrons. The much-feared secret police had an air force, too. Their tactics were so merciless the NKVD pilots even frightened their counterparts
in the Russian air corps.
The Isakov had seen action along Europe’s Mediterranean and North Sea coasts. Sometimes, its planes would even carry out surprise attacks on civilians living deep within Russian-controlled territory, just to remind them who was boss.
Now the NKVD was steering its great ship toward America. With New York firmly in the hands of the Russian military, more or less, the massive secret police organization would indeed have a jumping-off point from which to terrorize the continent. This was why the carrier was packed with tons of biological, conventional, and nuclear weapons. It was the arsenal for just such a campaign.
But that was not all.
At the very bottom of the ship, there was a large container, twelve feet by twelve feet, locked inside a bright yellow, lead-lined storage compartment, which was on wheels. Someone had nicknamed it the Magilla. Located in an area of the ship that only the vessel’s top officers could access, the item was never directly mentioned in any communiqués regarding the Isakov’s new deployment orders. In fact, no one but the highest echelons of the NKVD knew it even existed.
Its newly updated destination was the World Trade Center’s Tower Two.
The Isakov did not have a captain. It was run by a committee of seven NKVD political officers, all of equal rank but with varying experience in naval warfare. No matter, because in true Soviet fashion, one of the committee members was actually more powerful than the rest. This person had attained this position because he had a direct line to the very top of the secret police organization. His name was Yuri Zmeya Mikhailovich. He was Commissar Zmeya’s younger brother.
Just as handsome as Vladimir, and four years his junior, Senior Vessel Chairman Zmeya—or Commander Z (or just plain Z)—also bore a resemblance to the superspy Viktor Robotov, especially around the eyes. But however the DNA had been distributed, Yuri was as adept and as ruthless at his job as big brother Vladimir was at his. They’d both risen in the ranks very quickly and were plainly cut from the same cloth. And both were on the same mission: to make the NKVD the most feared police organization on the planet.
To this end, Z ran an extremely tight ship, rarely leaving the bridge. His pocket-size crew performed mostly as overseers of the Isakov’s vast computer systems—80 percent were IT guys. Still, they swabbed the decks, endlessly painted the ship, worked long duty shifts, and were fed the minimum.
Like his brother, Yuri Zmeya preferred to dress in black. On board the Isakov, he wore a nondescript black naval uniform, a massive naval cap, and large dark sunglasses, which he reportedly didn’t take off even when he slept, which wasn’t very often.
The convoy had left Murmansk ten days ago and had sailed in foul weather the entire trip—rain, high winds, very turbulent seas. This day promised more of the same. Torrential rain and the booming Atlantic had forced Z to clear the flight deck after just one abbreviated buddy patrol by a two-pack of its Su-34 JLR fighters.
By 0800 hours, the storm had grown even worse, forcing Z to reduce speed to eighteen knots.
The rain grew more intense, and the surface gale coming over the bow grew to fifty knots, blowing suds of salt and brine all the way down to the stern.
At 0830 hours, Z called off all air launches and ordered that once a transit air group from Murmansk landed later in the day, all air ops would be shut down entirely until the weather improved. While this canceled his surprise flyover of New York City by the carrier’s entire complement of Su-34s, not launching aircraft saved wear and tear on the knightly Su-34 JLRs. Plus, with the flight deck empty, the surging waves would wash away the last of the oil and grease that had accumulated over the long voyage. Yuri wanted his ship to look as good as possible when it arrived off Battery Park around noon the following day.
After all, big brother Vlad would be waiting at the dock.
By 1430 hours, when the second-call meal was delivered to the bridge from the officers’ mess, everyone but Z declined, all of their faces having turned some shade of green due to the heavy seas.
Z found this amusing. Going through major gales at sea was just another part of the job, he thought now, looking out on the nasty hurricane-like conditions. After all, he was commander of the greatest ship in the world, maybe in all of history, and he—
Suddenly, something crashed onto the carrier’s storm-tossed deck. It made a horrendous noise coming in, a sort of screeching that went right to the bone. It was black, had propellers and wings, and was belching tremendous streams of fire and smoke. It skidded right past the superstructure, creating a giant spray of sparks and traveling so fast it was certain to drop off the side of the ship. But at the very last moment, its landing gear collapsed, twisting its wings and demolishing its two engines. All this wreckage served to slow it down. It stopped just inches from toppling over the bow.
Z was simply stunned, as was everyone on the bridge. They all jumped to their feet and were crowded up against the control bridge windows, trying to make sense of what had just happened ten stories down. One NKVD committee member voiced the only likely explanation: Had some random plane in distress just crash-landed on their ship?
But before anyone could reply, a second plane came out of the storm, and it, too, slammed onto the deck. It looked exactly like the first, black and stubby. It quickly caught fire as well. Z froze in place. This was too much like something from a dream, something that just should not be happening. This second plane also went screeching past the superstructure at high speed, snapping all three of the ship’s arresting cables before crashing into the first plane. The collision resulted in so much jagged metal and steel, it served to keep both planes adhered to the viciously rolling flight deck.
Even before it stopped moving, armed men were jumping out of the second plane via its open cargo bay. Joining up with dark figures exiting the first smoking wreck, they tried mightily to push the two planes over the side, obviously to make room for a third plane, which hit the deck an instant later. Slamming into the far aft gun deck and cleanly severing its starboard wing, it scattered the armed invaders, spiraled into the first two planes, and finally knocked both wrecks into the sea.
Armed troops began pouring out of this third plane, too. Joining their comrades from the first two mangled aircraft, they took up positions among the automated weaponry in place along the forward starboard gunwale. Then, on someone’s command, the invaders started firing their weapons directly up at the control tower. Suddenly, a giant fan of bright red tracer rounds lit up the blowing morning rain. Sustained and merciless, the barrage was intended to kill the ship’s commanders and anyone else on the bridge.
But by this point, everyone inside the bridge had literally hit the deck as a storm of broken glass and machine gun rounds rained down on them—everyone except Commander Z. He remained absolutely still at the windows, awash in denial. That’s how he saw the fourth plane bang in, skid down the flight deck, collide with the island, and then screech to a long, painful halt up at the bow, covering the entire flight deck with a flood of sparks. Even more soldiers began jumping out of it.
Only then did Z’s security detail arrive and force him down to the deck.
“Sir—we are being attacked,” the lead security officer shouted. “We are going to remove you to the secure point behind the bridge.”
This knocked Z out of his trance.
He resisted the security team’s efforts to carry him away. “Who would possibly be attacking us? No one knows we’re out here.”
The lead security man looked at his colleagues and then grudgingly nodded. They let Z up slowly, still protecting him from all sides with handheld body-length bulletproof shields. Most of the bridge’s windows had been shattered by gunfire by this point, though the amount of incoming ordnance had not decreased.
Lifting Z only enough so he could see out one of these broken windows, the security man directed his attention to the wreckage of the fourth crashed plane. The flames around it wer
e bright enough to cut through the smoke and spray and let Z see something had been painted on its fuselage right behind the wing.
It was a flag.
Stars and stripes. Red, white, and blue. …
Z began sputtering. “Americans? No way—they’ve been reduced to cavemen. There’s no way they’ve gotten aboard my ship. No one knew we were coming. …”
The security team finally lifted Z off the deck and started moving him aft. While leaving the giant control room in this awkward deportment, Z ordered his fellow committee members to remain on the bridge and monitor the battle. They nervously acknowledged his command with a round of halfhearted salutes.
The security detail got Z into his large, fully equipped, steel-reinforced safe room located just behind the bridge. They locked themselves in with him. The mandated withdrawal had little impact on him, though. He immediately turned on the ship’s intercom and began barking orders. His first was to call the crew to battle stations.
But this brought a moment of confusion. The Isakov might have been the greatest warship in the world, but it was crewed by only four hundred men, most of whom were technicians. Battle stations to them meant manning the screens at their Vector-06Cs and Mera-7209 computers and looking for some target out over the horizon. They were just barely sailors, never mind soldiers, and they’d never drilled for a physical attack on the ship because no one had ever dreamed something like this would happen.
Still, there were plenty of combat weapons on the carrier, thousands of AK-47s along with tons of ammunition. Some bigger, even more destructive combat weapons, like RPG launchers, were on board as well.
Battle for America Page 16