by Dale Brown
Reluctantly, Martindale nodded. “For the past couple of months, my people inside Russia have been picking up rumors of something called Proyekt Zhar-Ptitsa, the Firebird Project.”
“Firebird,” Patrick said heavily.
“That is dismayingly suggestive,” Martindale agreed.
“So why is this the first time I’m hearing about it?” Patrick asked.
Martindale sighed. “Mostly because all I had were a few unsubstantiated bits of information, more random gossip than hard intelligence. Not anything worth sounding the alarm about, especially with Brad and Nadia’s wedding coming up.”
“And that’s changed recently?”
Martindale nodded. “My operatives have learned that, whatever this Firebird Project is, it involves some of the top aerospace engineers and designers from Sukhoi, Tupolev, and Mikoyan.” Those were the top Russian military aircraft manufacturers.
“Then we’d better make damned sure Sky Masters tightens up its security,” Patrick growled. “Because those LPDRS triple-hybrid engines it produces are the key component for any real spaceplane program.”
Martindale nodded his understanding. All the other elements needed to build a working single-stage-to-orbit spaceplane—hypersonic airframe designs, composite materials, advanced computer flight controls, and the like—were already readily available. So if the Russians ever got their hands on Sky Masters’ revolutionary engine technology, all bets were off. Moscow could have its own fleet of hypersonic aircraft and spacecraft flying within one or two years—completely upsetting the favorable balance of power the United States had so recently achieved.
Eleven
Aerospace City, Beijing, People’s Republic of China
Several Weeks Later
From the outside, activity at Beijing’s Aerospace City—the center of China’s national space program—appeared normal. Civilian engineers, scientists, and other workers arriving at the main gate for their shifts were still only subject to the usual, routine identity checks. Nothing else immediately suggested anything out of the ordinary, though a keen observer might have wondered why so many lights were on all night in various office buildings, labs, and spacecraft production facilities scattered across the 577-acre complex.
Once beyond the main gate, however, it was clear that significantly tighter security measures were in effect. Type 08 eight-wheeled infantry fighting vehicles armed with 30mm autocannons were parked near key intersections. Soldiers in camouflaged battle dress and body armor manned checkpoints outside several buildings. Civilians entering these facilities were subject to a much higher level of scrutiny.
Even more troops were currently deployed around Production Building Number Five. Three full platoons formed a protective cordon around the three Harbin Z-20 medium-lift helicopters that had recently touched down in a nearby parking lot. No one was taking any chances with the safety of the three VIPs those helicopters had ferried to Aerospace City.
Inside Building Five’s cavernous main hall, Marshal Mikhail Leonov, President Li Jun, and General Chen Haifeng walked together along a raised platform. A gaggle of aides and security guards trailed them at a respectful distance. From time to time, the three men paused at large, clear windows, intently examining several of the spacecraft under construction in separate clean rooms.
Leonov stopped longer at one of the observation windows. Gowned and masked technicians were carefully fitting a docking collar to the top of a four-legged space vehicle sheathed in layers of what appeared to be gold foil. Others were at work at various points around the upper half of the ungainly-looking craft—inspecting thrusters and a number of dish and wire antennas.
“That is one of our Chang’e landers,” Chen said with pride.
Leonov nodded. He’d studied schematics and photographs, but seeing the actual spacecraft up close like this was far more impressive. “It bears a striking resemblance to the American Apollo vehicle,” he commented.
Li Jun shrugged. “That is so. After all, form follows function.” He smiled. “But the Chang’e benefits from all the technological advances of the past fifty years. Its flight controls, electronics, and other systems are orders of magnitude beyond anything the Americans possessed in 1969.”
“Will your lander be able to dock successfully with our Federation orbiter?” Leonov asked. The Federation was Russia’s next-generation manned spacecraft, replacing the antiquated Soyuz. Similar in shape and size to NASA’s Orion and SpaceX’s Dragon, each Federation could carry up to six crewmen into space. Its robust life-support systems and substantial stores of food, water, and oxygen allowed missions of up to thirty days in duration.
“Without a doubt,” Chen confirmed. “Fortunately, our docking mechanisms are completely compatible. A team of top aerospace engineers from our two nations has already run hundreds of simulations—working through every detail of the necessary approach and docking procedures. Other groups are busy refining the plans for our first series of joint space missions.”
“And crews of your military cosmonauts and our taikonauts are training together now in some of our facilities,” Li Jun added. “My advisers tell me they are making good progress.”
“That is excellent news,” Leonov said, and he meant it. Necessity had forced him to delegate preparations for many of the first, crucial elements of Operation Heaven’s Thunder to his Chinese allies. After all, their space program had the required expertise and it was providing essential hardware. Of almost equal importance, China was much harder for Western intelligence organizations to penetrate. Decades of repression and propaganda had created a population wary of anyone who might be a spy. This atmosphere of government-stoked paranoia, combined with an enormous and highly efficient internal security apparatus, made it almost impossible for foreigners to operate unnoticed.
He moved on to the next observation window. The spacecraft being assembled in this clean room was even bigger. Like the Chang’e, it had four retractable landing struts, but it was dominated by a large spherical fuel tank mounted below an open deck studded with attachment points and what appeared to be a small cargo crane.
Leonov glanced toward Li Jun and Chen. “And this machine?”
“That is the first prototype of our new Mă Luó automated cargo lander,” Chen explained. “Its payload capacity is close to ten metric tons.”
Leonov whistled softly, impressed. Translated, Mă Luó meant “mule.” It seemed an apt name for a spacecraft able to carry far more payload to the lunar surface than anything ever built before. But, like its Chang’e counterpart, there was something hauntingly familiar about this design. He looked closer, studying its key features. Then he saw it. With a wry smile, he turned back to his hosts. “That’s an enlarged version of the American-designed Blue Moon lander, isn’t it?”
Chen nodded, matching his amused expression. “We were able to acquire the technical specifications and design blueprints from its creator, the private space company Blue Origin.”
“Without their knowledge, I suspect?” Leonov said dryly.
“Naturally,” Chen replied.
Leonov felt a moment’s envy. Over the past several decades, China’s Ministry of State Security had painstakingly planted deep-cover intelligence officers and agents-of-influence in many of America’s government departments, private corporations, and universities. As a result, its ability to pry secrets loose far surpassed that of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, the SVR, or the GRU, the armed forces’ Main Intelligence Directorate. While that was a clear advantage now, it was also an unwelcome reminder of just how dependent Russia was on its larger and richer Asian ally.
But then he looked down again at the prototype cargo spacecraft. It was much too heavy for any existing Chinese launch vehicle to carry into Earth orbit—let alone send to the moon. Only Russia’s powerful Energia-5VR rocket could do the job. He let his momentary irritation subside, soothed by this realization. So long as Beijing remembered that Moscow brought its own strengths to this combined ent
erprise, all would be well.
Twelve
Kansk-Dalniy Military Air Base, East of Krasnoyarsk, Russia
Some Weeks Later
Kansk-Dalniy’s 2,500-meter-long runway stretched across a flat countryside of fields and scattered patches of woodland. Revetments for the regiment of MiG-31BM Foxhound long-range interceptors stationed at the airfield were clustered near both ends of the strip. Hangars, maintenance shops, weapons bunkers, and barracks for the pilots and ground crews lined the runway’s northwest edge.
Located more than two thousand miles east of Moscow, this relatively isolated rural base was the last place one would ordinarily expect to find a large crowd of Russian military and government officials, along with representatives from the country’s top aircraft companies and design bureaus. And yet, here they were—waiting with growing anticipation to witness what was described as a key test flight in Russia’s top secret Firebird high-speed experimental aircraft program.
Many of the spectators occupied bleacher seating set up along the runway. Others milled around near a large temporary aircraft shelter erected next to the airfield’s wide concrete apron. Enlisted personnel circulated through the crowd, offering drinks and zakuski, hors d’oeuvres of cold cuts, fish, and vegetables.
One of the guests, a trim, efficient-looking lieutenant colonel with short blond hair and icy blue eyes, took a glass of sparkling wine. She nodded curt thanks to the airman who’d served her and then motioned him away. “Quite a festive atmosphere,” she murmured to the big, beefy man in civilian clothes standing next to her.
He snorted. “All but the weather, Colonel.”
Lieutenant Colonel Katya Volkova glanced up at the sky and nodded. Thick gray clouds stretched from horizon to horizon. Her mouth twisted slightly. “Not exactly ideal conditions for a test flight,” she said.
“Do you think it’ll be postponed?”
“God, I hope not,” Volkova said with a short laugh. “Another day spent hanging around this provincial dump? No, thank you.”
Many of those within earshot nodded their own agreement. Moscow was enjoying its best weather of the year right now—a far cry from the gloomy overcast currently covering most of this part of Siberia. Stadium-sized video monitors tuned to cameras broadcasting from Novosibirsk and Omsk showed the same dreary gray skies. And security concerns or not, it seemed absurd to stage this Firebird demonstration flight so far from the capital. Even Krasnoyarsk, the nearest decently sized city, was almost 125 miles away.
As it was, there were only limited windows of opportunity to conduct this test without fear of enemy observation. Careful timing was essential to ensure that America’s Eagle Station and its handful of newly launched reconnaissance satellites were in the wrong orbits to see anything over this sparsely populated portion of the Motherland.
Suddenly, a harsh alert tone blared through loudspeakers around the air base. “Vnimaniye! Attention! The test flight will now commence. Stand clear of the aircraft shelter. Repeat, stand clear of the aircraft shelter.”
More airmen moved across the tarmac in a line, ushering the crowd away from the shelter. Slowly, the giant shelter’s clamshell doors swung open—revealing a very large, swept-wing aircraft with four enormous engines mounted beneath its wings. Those engines were already spooling up, splitting the air with a deafening, shrill howl.
Through narrowed eyes, Volkova studied the huge jet as it rolled slowly out into the open air and turned onto the taxiway. It looked very much like a modified Tu-160 supersonic bomber, she decided, though those engine nacelles were a different shape and significantly larger. That made some sense, since the Tu-160’s airframe was already designed to handle supersonic flight. On the other hand, she doubted strongly that it was suitable for operations outside the atmosphere. If so, this aircraft must be intended primarily as a test bed for those massive new engines.
As soon as it reached the far end of the runway, the modified Tu-160 swung into position and started its takeoff roll—thundering past the crowd at an ever-increasing speed. Three-quarters of the way down the runway, it rotated and soared skyward, trailing plumes of faintly yellowish exhaust. Within moments, it vanished among the low-hanging, thick gray clouds.
Only seconds later, the sharp crack of a sonic boom rattled windows and teeth across the air base. This evidence of incredibly swift acceleration created a stir of excitement among the waiting crowd. Nothing short of a high-performance modern jet fighter should be able to reach supersonic speeds so rapidly.
Eight minutes after that, the big-screen video monitor tuned to Novosibirsk, five hundred miles to the west, registered a second loud sonic boom. Another exultant murmur rippled through the onlookers.
“Does that mean what I think it means?” the big man said, keeping his voice low.
Samantha Kerr, currently masquerading as Lieutenant Colonel Volkova of the Russian Aerospace Forces, nodded tightly to her colleague, Marcus Cartwright, another Scion field operative. “If I’ve done my mental math right, what we just heard was an aircraft moving at Mach Five, right at the edge of hypersonic speeds . . . and a hell of a lot faster than anything else in the Russian inventory.”
The loudspeakers blared again, relaying information that was unnecessary for anyone who’d been paying the slightest attention. “The Firebird has just passed over Novosibirsk at high altitude. Now it is flying on toward Omsk.”
Cartwright lowered his voice even further. “Well, now we know why our Russian friends made it so hard to wangle invitations to their party.”
Sam nodded again. Several weeks ago, Scion’s intelligence operation inside Russia had picked up rumors about this upcoming Firebird flight demonstration. Careful poking around inside several different Defense Ministry classified databases had shown that technical information about the Firebird Project itself was hidden behind a series of impenetrable computer security firewalls. Fortunately, the official list of several hundred military officers, government officials, and aviation industry bigwigs cleared to witness the Kansk-Dalniy test was guarded by slightly less imposing barriers. But even then, it had taken Scion’s best hackers days of painstaking effort to covertly breach those protocols and add their carefully forged credentials—as Lieutenant Colonel Volkova and Sergei Kondakov from the Ministry of Industry and Trade—to the approved list.
As it was, Sam knew that only Moscow’s seemingly odd decision to unveil its top secret Firebird program to so many people at one time made this dangerous covert operation even remotely possible. Posing as a Russian bird colonel and a mid-ranking bureaucrat, even with top-notch fake documents, would have been far too dangerous at a smaller, more intimate, gathering of real experts.
But now that she’d seen this prototype hypersonic aircraft in action, she understood why Marshal Leonov was willing to risk someone spilling the beans. If the Russians already had a manned aircraft that could reach speeds of Mach Five or higher in controlled flight, they were very close to being able to build true single-stage-to-orbit spaceplanes. And the moment a brand-new, experimental spaceplane started flying to the upper reaches of the atmosphere and beyond, the whole world would know exactly what Moscow was doing.
“I guess it’s a good thing I don’t mind being the bearer of bad tidings,” Sam said softly to Cartwright. “Because this news is definitely not going to make Mr. Martindale’s day.”
Phantom Three, at High Altitude over Omsk
Minutes Later
Ten thousand meters above the Siberian industrial city of Omsk, a large, gray twin-tailed fighter rolled out of the slow, racetrack holding pattern it had been following for several minutes. The railroads and waterways that gave the city its importance as a transportation hub were invisible, obscured by a solid layer of thick clouds.
Inside the MiG-31’s forward cockpit, Major Stepan Grigoryev kept a careful eye on the digital timer counting down along the edge of his head-up display. “Stand by, Alexey,” he announced over the intercom. “Twenty seconds.”
“Standing by,” Captain Balandin, his weapon systems officer, acknowledged from the fighter’s rear cockpit. “Cloud cover remains at one hundred percent. There are no air contacts on my radar.”
“Understood,” Grigoryev said. That was good news. All civilian and military air traffic had been diverted away from this region for the duration of the “Firebird flight test.” After all, there was no point in staging this little magic act if anyone on the ground or in the air could see what was happening. Abruptly, the timer on his HUD flashed to zero.
“Going supersonic,” he snapped. His left hand shoved the MiG’s throttles all the way forward and then slightly to the left—going to full military power, past the detent, and into afterburner. Raw fuel poured into the exhaust stream of both huge Soloviev D-30F6 engines and ignited. Immediately, he felt himself shoved back against his seat as the fighter accelerated with astonishing rapidity.
Seconds later, the boom created by its sudden transition beyond the sound barrier rippled across Omsk and its suburbs. For those watching the monitors back at Kansk-Dalniy, it would seem as if the mythical Firebird test aircraft had just slashed through the sky high above the city at more than six thousand kilometers per hour.
Beneath his oxygen mask, Grigoryev bared his teeth in a wolfish smile. Not a bad piece of sleight of hand, he thought. First, send a Tu-160 bomber—fitted out with fake engine nacelles—up through the clouds and well away from the airfield, out of sight and out of hearing. And then, at precisely calculated intervals, have each of the three MiG-31 fighters stationed over Kansk-Dalniy, Novosibirsk, and Omsk suddenly accelerate beyond the speed of sound . . . creating the perfect illusion of a hypersonic-capable aircraft streaking across central Russia at incredibly high speed.