by Jeff Edwards
Immediately after the transition to powered flight, one of the missiles experienced an engine flameout. Robbed of its power, the weapon tumbled out of the sky, to disintegrate upon impact with the ocean below.
Each of the remaining missiles automatically initiated a satellite uplink, to check its geographic location against the constellation of Russian GLONASS positioning satellites in orbit 19,000 kilometers above the earth. Satisfied that their respective positions were within acceptable mission parameters, each missile dove to its programmed cruise altitude just 100 meters above the waves.
By the time the missiles reached their first navigational waypoint, the bombers had already turned west toward home. For the crews of the TU-160s, the mission was over. For the nineteen cruise missiles streaking toward Kamchatka, the mission was just beginning.
* * *
Russian Naval Formation:
The second wave of the attack came from a trio of Russian Sovremenny Class Destroyers steaming in a single column formation a dozen kilometers off the eastern coast of Kamchatka. All three ships—the Osmotritel'nyy, the Boyevoy, and the Burny—had seen hard duty during the Cold War, but not one of them had ever fired a shot under conditions of actual combat.
The strike plan had called for a fourth ship, but the Bezboyaznenny had suffered a crippling electrical fire during the transit, and had been forced to limp ignominiously back into port with the help of oceangoing tugs. Given the condition of the Russian surface navy and the high-speed transit from Vladivostok, most of the Russian Sailors considered it something of a minor miracle that three of the four ships had made the journey intact.
Standing on the bridge of the Osmotritel'nyy, Kapitan, Second Rank Igor Volkov stared through the port side bridge windows of his ship. As the senior naval officer in the formation, he was in command. In accordance with his orders, all three warships were running black—their radars and radios silent, all external lights extinguished. Out on the horizon, the Kamchatkan coastline was a smudge of shadow against the darkened waves.
The ships moved slowly, barely maintaining steerageway, partly to prevent the formation of visible propeller wakes, and partly to ensure that they would be within range of their targets when Volkov gave the order to commence fire.
In addition to missiles and torpedoes, each of the warships was armed with two AK-130 naval gun systems: one mounted near the bow, and the other near the stern. Designed and built during the Cold War, the AK-130s each carried a pair of liquid-cooled 130 mm cannon barrels on triaxially-stabilized gun mounts. Roughly equivalent in speed and firepower to the 5-inch naval artillery of the United States Navy, the AK-130 was one of the most powerful gun systems in the modern world.
The guns were already locked onto their respective target coordinates, elevation drive motors moaning quietly as the fire control computers kept the long steel cannon barrels stabilized against the rolling motion of the ships. Like the ships themselves, the guns had been designed and built during the Cold War, by Soviet engineers and technicians who had no doubt assumed that their handiwork would someday be used to kill Americans. But the guns were not aimed at Americans. They were aimed at Russian buildings, in a Russian city. And when the guns spoke in anger for the very first time, their rain of death would fall on Russian citizens.
Volkov continued to stare out the bridge windows at the darkened coast of Kamchatka. A lifetime spent defending his country, and it all came down to this. He had been ordered to kill his own people.
He knew it had to be done. The insurrection had to be stopped in its tracks or many more people would die. Maybe even the entire world, if that mad idiot Zhukov managed to make good on his nuclear threats. But understanding the necessity did not make Volkov feel much better about killing his own countrymen.
Some of Zhukov’s words had the ring of truth to them. Russia did have problems. Big problems. And some of those problems were undoubtedly the result of his country’s blind leap into an economic and political model that the Russian people did not understand. But the solution to Russia’s problems was not conquest. The Rodina could not regain her footing by holding a gun to the world’s head.
The clock clicked over to 2300 (1000 Zulu). Volkov lifted the handset of the radio telephone and held the receiver to his ear. He took a breath and broke the long-held radio silence. “All ships, this is Formation Command. Commence firing.”
The night was shattered by man-made thunder as six gun barrels spat fire and steel into the darkness. An instant later, the secondary barrels for all six gun mounts fired as the double-barreled weapons fell into reciprocating cycles of load and shoot.
Volkov lowered the radio telephone handset to its cradle just as explosions began erupting along the coastline. He had no way of knowing that some of those explosions came from a flight of nineteen cruise missiles whose arrival had been timed to coincide with the naval bombardment from his ships. He felt every fireball that mushroomed in the darkness, and he mentally took responsibility for every one. They seared themselves into his brain, and he imagined that he could hear the screams of the injured and dying, transmitted to him across the impossible distance on the carrier wave of his own guilt.
He wondered if there might not be a special corner of Hell reserved for warriors who murdered their own people. And in the gloom of the unlit bridge, Volkov began to pray.
CHAPTER 22
U.S. NAVAL HOSPITAL
YOKOSUKA, JAPAN
SATURDAY; 02 MARCH
1929 hours (7:29 PM)
TIME ZONE +9 ‘INDIA’
Consciousness came slowly to Oleg Grigoriev, and its return was not at all welcome. He decided not to try opening his eyes yet.
He was inhumanly tired, and he felt as though every millimeter of his body had been beaten with an iron pipe. The worst of the pain was held at a distance by the drugs given to him by the American doctors. He could sense the ugly mass of it, waiting for him on the other side of the protective haze of narcotics. If the doctors relaxed their vigil, it would come for him again.
He tried to raise his right hand, the one that was free from those damnable tubes and needles. A few centimeters above the mattress, his muscles failed and his hand fell back to the green hospital sheet. He was as weak as a child. No … Weaker. A child could stand. Grigoriev could not even lift his own arm.
What had happened to the tough old Russian bear? Had a few Chinese bullets really brought a battle-hardened Red Army soldier so low? Perhaps they had.
All he could do for now was rest and wait for his body to mend. His strength would begin to return as his wounds were healed. Or would it?
His brain was muddled by the drugs, perhaps too clouded to take accurate stock of his body. The pain wasn’t getting better; he was sure about that. He didn’t seem to be getting stronger. His body was so feeble that he could only remain awake for a few moments at a time. Was he actually improving? It didn’t feel that way.
For the first time, he wondered if he might be dying. The Americans had not said so. But their government wanted the information in Grigoriev’s brain. They needed his cooperation. If he was dying, they might not tell him.
Or perhaps they would. The Americans were confusing. Their values and priorities were so odd. The doctors, nurses, and orderlies in this place wore military uniforms and insignia, but nearly all of them seemed to put medical duties ahead of military obligations. They were healers first, and warriors second. Or maybe, not at all.
It was puzzling. Did it make these people less dangerous as adversaries? Or more dangerous? He didn’t know. And Zhukov, the bastard who had thrown Grigoriev to that pack of Chinese wolves in Manila, probably didn’t know either.
Grigoriev opened his eyes. That small act took far more effort than it should have. The room was a smear of blurred shapes.
He blinked once, and concentrated on dragging the shapes into focus.
One of the American agents, the tall one, spotted Grigoriev’s open eyes and crossed to the bed in two or three long s
trides.
They watched him closely, these Americans. Not so much the medical people. They monitored his breathing and heartbeat, the dressings on his wounds, and the collection of machines wired to Grigoriev’s body like a telephone switchboard. The others, the ones in the dark suits, were never more than a meter or two away from Grigoriev’s bed. They even watched him when he was sleeping; he was sure of it.
The men in suits would be CIA. Or perhaps FBI. It didn’t matter. For Grigoriev’s purposes, one would work as well as the other.
He took a breath and steeled himself to speak. “Bring paper …” His voice was a whispering rasp.
The man in the suit stepped closer. “I’m Agent DuBrul …”
“Bring paper,” Grigoriev whispered again. The words hurt his throat, and he nearly ran out of air on the last syllable. He breathed heavily for a few seconds, gathering strength before continuing.
The American agent reached into his pocket and pulled out a notebook. “I have paper.”
“Write this …” Grigoriev rasped.
“I’m ready,” the agent said. He stood with pen poised above the notebook.
“Five … eight …” Grigoriev paused to catch his breath. “… two … nine …” He paused again. “One … five … five.”
He was fighting for breath now. His blood was roaring in his ears, and he could feel the wound in his chest pulsing in time to the pounding of his heartbeat. One of the medical machines close to his bed began bleating rhythmically.
The door flew open, and a doctor came straight to his bed.
“Two …” Grigoriev croaked. “… Zero …”
“That’s enough,” the doctor said. He leaned over Grigoriev. “Just relax, sir. Don’t try to talk.”
The agent looked at his notebook and read back the numbers. “Five-eight-two-nine-one-five-five-two-zero. Is that correct? What does that mean?”
“I said that’s enough!” the doctor snapped.
The pain came out of nowhere, squeezing Grigoriev’s heart like a fist. His vision was narrowing. “Tell …” The room was a tunnel now, the doctor and the agent at the far end of a lengthening tube of darkness. “Tell … your … president.”
The bleating of the machine became a continuous squeal, and the hospital room disappeared.
CHAPTER 23
OPERATIONS COMMAND POST #3
OUTSIDE PETROPAVLOVSK-KAMCHATSKI, RUSSIA
SUNDAY; 03 MARCH
0822 hours (8:22 AM)
TIME ZONE +12 ‘MIKE’
Standing at the mouth of the cave, Sergiei Mikhailovich Zhukov looked down the snowy side of Koryaksky mountain toward Petropavlovsk, the capital city of his new nation. The missile attacks and naval bombardment had ceased—for the moment at least—and thick columns of smoke were rising from at least a dozen places in his city, to mingle with the slate gray clouds blowing in from Siberia.
Zhukov could not hear the sirens from this distance, but he was certain that they were in full-cry as emergency crews rushed to contain fires and rescue the injured. The distance also insulated him from the cries of the wounded and the dying. That was probably for the best. He could not allow his human instinct for compassion to influence his thoughts and actions. He must follow the example set by Lenin, and accept the fact that blood, and pain, and death were part of the cost of revolution.
Later, when the struggle was won and Russia had regained her rightful position as a world power, the people who died here would be properly honored. He would see to that. The history books would record this as the Siege of Petropavlovsk, and he would have the names of those who lost their lives here engraved on every monument in the new Russia. But those were thoughts for the future. If he was going to bring that future about, he needed to concentrate on the present.
He looked again at the columns of smoke. As he had expected, the majority of the damage appeared to be concentrated on the naval station at Rybachiy, and the Oblast government buildings at Ploshad Lenina. Those doddering old fools in Moscow were reacting exactly as he had predicted. By attacking the seat of his government and his largest military base, they hoped to cut off the head of his revolution and break its back in a single stroke. It obviously hadn’t occurred to them that he would not sit still and wait for their axe to fall.
The attacks had been brief, but surprisingly ferocious: an astonishing amount of firepower brought to bear in a very short period of time. The Ministry of Defense had taken a page from America’s book, and tried their own version of the infamous Shock and Awe tactic. But Zhukov had studied American tactics as well. More importantly, he had studied the tactics of America’s enemies. One of the best lessons had come from the mountains of Afghanistan … Your enemy cannot destroy what he cannot find.
Kamchatka was one of the most volcanic regions on the globe. Koryaksky, Avachinsky, and Kozelsky, the three dormant volcanic mountains closest to Petropavlovsk, were riddled with lava caves, and Zhukov had equipment, supplies, and men hidden in most of them. If the mighty United States military could not root Taliban fighters out of the mountains and caves of Afghanistan, the crumbling Russian army would have no better luck trying to pry Zhukov’s own forces out of the caverns and volcanoes of Kamchatka.
Not that they wouldn’t try, once they discovered that their clumsy attempt at a decapitation attack had failed. But he had no intention of letting things go that far.
Weapons were engines of power. The more terrible a weapon was, the greater its power. Lenin had understood that. So had Stalin and Khrushchev. But Brezhnev, with his love for expensive clothes and cars from America and Western Europe, had not understood. And the imbeciles who had stumbled along so blindly in Brezhnev’s footsteps had shown even less understanding of the simple logic of power.
The door to the command post opened behind him, and Zhukov turned to see one of his lieutenants walk between the pair of Chinese soldiers who guarded the entrance to the facility. The lieutenant strode briskly toward his new president, sparing not even a glance for the Chinese guards, as though even the act of looking at them was beneath him.
Zhukov understood the lieutenant’s feelings. Apart from the fact that Asians were ethnically classified as chernyee, or black, to the burgeoning groundswell of racism in Russia, these chernyee were mercenaries. They had come here to fight, not because they supported the reestablishment of communism in Russia, but because their politburo—the Central Committee of the People’s Republic of China—was willing to trade the lives of forty thousand combat troops for access to crucial nuclear missile technology.
Their black uniforms had been stripped of labels and insignia; they carried no identification or personal effects, and the serial numbers had been removed from their weapons. They had even been delivered by civilian automobile transport ships, with no traceable connection to the Chinese government. Their political masters in Beijing were taking every precaution to allow themselves maximum deniability if Zhukov’s plans for revolution went astray.
Of course, the Chinese soldiers had been told none of this. They had been told only that they were part of a covert combat action that was crucial to the defense of their country. They had all received bonuses equal to three years worth of pay, with the promise of a matching bonus upon successful completion of the mission. That, plus the rigid discipline of the Chinese military, was enough to ensure their functional loyalty for the moment at least.
Zhukov had no illusions that the chernyee bastards would stay bought, but he wouldn’t need them for very long. They were not the core of his revolution. They were merely the torch needed to light the fire.
The lieutenant halted, came to attention, and saluted. “Comrade President, there is news.”
Zhukov returned the salute and accepted a small bundle of papers from the lieutenant’s gloved left hand. “Thank you, Comrade Lieutenant.” He glanced down at the papers. “Give me a summary.”
The lieutenant dropped his salute, but remained at attention. “Comrade President, your staff is downloading
press statements from Pravda, Izvestia, and several western news sources. They are all carrying essentially the same story. Moscow has issued a formal statement that the revolution has been put down. They claim to have wiped out our command and control infrastructure, and they are speculating that most of our senior officers and officials were killed by their cruise missile attacks. They confirm the destruction of your offices at Ploshad Lenina, and your private residence. You are listed as missing and presumed dead, Comrade President.”
Zhukov smiled and thumped himself on the chest. “I must admit that I feel pretty good for a walking corpse.”
The lieutenant returned his smile. “Yes, sir! The papers also report that the threat of nuclear action has passed, and that the Zelenograd is trapped under the ice pack, where it will be located and destroyed shortly.”
Zhukov felt his smile widen a fraction. This was the news he had been waiting for. He nodded toward the man. “Thank you, Comrade Lieutenant. You may return to your duties.”
The lieutenant saluted, did an about-face, and marched past the Chinese guards and into the command post.
When the door had closed behind the man, Zhukov looked down at the printouts from the newspaper websites. He’d read them later. For now, it was enough to feel them in his hand. Once again, Moscow was reacting as he had predicted.
He turned his eyes to the pillars of smoke rising from the city below him. He would let the story percolate through the various news medias for another couple of hours, to give most of the supposed experts an opportunity to weigh in on the swift destruction of his revolution. Then he would give the order for the next phase of the operation, and reveal to the world that so-called Russian government was populated by liars and fools.
CHAPTER 24
ICE PACK - NORTHERN SEA OF OKHOTSK
LATITUDE 58.29N / LONGITUDE 155.20E