by Flynn Vince
A bloody, protracted war would siphon their resources and national will. The Americans would keep their actions just below the threshold that would justify a large scale response. They would smuggle supplies, advisors, and special operations teams. They would engineer ever more crushing economic sanctions. And they would pull Europe together and rebuild their military capability. The Russian people would find their lives adversely impacted and would look for someone to blame. Even with the skillful use of the media, it was impossible to imagine that he wouldn’t become the target of their rage.
“We need a quick, decisive victory, Andrei. Not a slow-moving disaster.”
“The situation has changed,” Sokolov admitted. “We’ll win, but the fight will be more difficult than we anticipated. In the end, that’s the nature of war.”
“Unacceptable.”
“Sir, there is no—”
“We’ll abort our invasions of Lithuania and Estonia. The freed-up troops will be used to reinforce our attack on Latvia. We’ll bring such an overwhelming force to this war that the insurgency will never have a chance to take hold. It’ll be clear to the Latvians that resistance can produce nothing but the destruction of their country and the loss of their lives.”
“Sir, we have meticulously laid plans to take all three countries. I’d advise against changing them at this late date.”
Krupin’s instinct was to make it clear that his orders were not to be questioned, but forced a softer response. The stimulants would soon wear off and Krupin’s next treatment was already scheduled. For the time being, the general had to be kept happy.
“Field commanders are always clamoring for more men and equipment, Andrei. Now we can give it to them. We’ll split the Baltics and still deliver a humiliating—perhaps even fatal—blow to the Western alliance. Lithuania and Estonia will still fall to us. But not today.”
• • •
Krupin strode down the hallway clutching a portfolio in one hand and keeping the other in his pocket. His vigor and ability to concentrate had been waning, forcing him to inject another vial of Fedkin’s stimulants. They’d done their job, but at the cost of a dangerously racing heart and a shaking in his extremities that had to be obscured.
The gilt doors looming ahead began to open and he heard the familiar rumble of people rising from their seats. The sound system announced his arrival and he picked up his pace as he entered the auditorium. The full membership of the Federal Assembly filled his peripheral vision but he ignored them, focusing on taking the steps to the podium at his customary half jog. The hand in his pocket felt unnatural enough that he removed it, letting it swing loosely by his side before slipping it behind a lectern placed center stage.
It was a substantial, ornate piece of furniture that hid most of his body and had a small desktop where he could still his trembling hands. The quilted velvet upholstery on the back was a new addition, but everything else in the room was familiar—the vaulted ceiling high overhead, the gold chandeliers, and, most of all, the faces of the politicians staring up at him.
“Please be seated.”
They did as he asked, the sound of their movements once again echoing through the hall.
“I’ll keep my remarks brief. As you know, Russia has been the target of increasing aggressions from the West. Their overtures in Ukraine and growing interest in Georgia. Their provocative ongoing exercises in Poland, the treatment of ethnic Russians in former Soviet republics . . .”
He paused and looked out over the nervous faces of his audience. All were aware of the cyberattacks targeting the Baltics and would be worried about being called into this emergency session. Cowards.
“More recently, our intelligence community has uncovered a plan by NATO to place men and equipment on our border with Latvia, less than six hundred kilometers from our capital.”
A lie, of course, but one that caused concerned murmurs to fill the hall.
“We can no longer tolerate this slow campaign of encroachment. Our country is being carved up and encircled. Marginalized and isolated. I had hoped that our diplomatic efforts and deep commitment to peace would halt the aggression, but it’s only served to emboldened our enemies.”
The sweat broke across his forehead but he resisted the urge to wipe it away.
“Ten minutes ago, and with great regret, I found myself with no other option than to move our military into Latvia.”
There was an expected stunned silence and then a cacophony that quickly turned deafening. A number of his bolder political opponents actually dared to stand and shout directly at him.
“Be seated!” he said, bringing his mouth closer to the microphones lined up in front of him. “We had—”
The force of the explosion slammed him into the lectern, toppling it and sending him sliding across the floor. The heat was next, penetrating his suit and scalding the back of his neck as smoke billowed over him.
Other than that he was uninjured. The carefully calibrated direction of the blast and the heavy upholstery on the lectern had done exactly what Sokolov said they would.
Krupin managed to stand, squinting through the haze at the members of the Federal Assembly visible in the first few rows. Most were panicking, running over the top of one another in a desperate effort to escape. A few were unconscious and at least two appeared dead, the victims of a flagpole that had become a projectile.
Krupin began barking orders, pointed to an injured woman struggling to remain upright as her colleagues rushed past her. He made a show of trying to fight off his security detail as they began dragging him offstage, but it was just for the cameras. His breath was becoming labored and his heart felt oddly hollow in his chest.
He’d accomplished what was necessary and now it was time to rest.
CHAPTER 36
SALEKHARD
RUSSIA
GRISHA Azarov slipped on his coat and buried the bottom of his chin in a coarse wool scarf. A threadbare fedora pulled low on his forehead completed the disguise. Not the most extravagant he’d ever worn, but in the rain and darkness it would suffice.
He descended the apartment building’s stairs, crossing the poorly lit entry and opening the front door a few centimeters. There was a single man standing behind the ambulance, his eyes sweeping up and down the empty street. Pushkin and the two remaining men had gone inside Yuri Lebedev’s home with a gurney.
Azarov finally stepped through the door, slapping his arms around his torso against the cold as he crossed the street.
“Is Yuri all right?” he asked the man posing as a paramedic.
“Just fine. You should go back inside.”
“He’s a friend of mine,” Azarov said, ignoring the advice. “I know he’s been ill.”
“Just a little trouble breathing. We’re taking him to the hospital for an evaluation. Now why don’t you go back to bed? It’s late.”
The front door of the house opened and Pushkin came out, leading his two men and a rolling gurney. Strapped firmly to it was an unconscious Yuri Lebedev. His wife appeared in the doorway a moment later, looking terrified and periodically turning to speak to someone behind her. Undoubtedly a feeble attempt to reassure her two daughters.
Azarov stepped back, keeping the vehicle between him and Pushkin. When they started loading Lebedev inside, he pulled a GPS tracker from his pocket and used the magnet to secure it to the chassis.
He retreated farther into the darkness as two men climbed in the back with their patient. By the time the vehicle pulled away, Azarov had slipped into a muddy gap between his apartment building and the one next to it. The CIA tracking application on his phone took a few moments to locate the hidden GPS, but finally a blue dot appeared on the map.
He dialed as he walked toward the car he’d parked two blocks north. Joe Maslick picked up on the second ring.
“Please tell me you don’t need another cooler.”
“Nikita Pushkin just picked up Lebedev. The tracker is five by five. I’ll be able to follow them at a
comfortable distance.”
There was a brief pause over the line. “Roger that. I’ve got it up on my screen. Target heading east. I’ll call Dr. Kennedy and see if we have any satellite coverage but your weather doesn’t look like it’s cooperating. I’m a few hours out on getting you backup.”
“Understood. Keep me updated on your progress.”
Azarov disconnected the call, struggling to keep his pace from accelerating unnaturally. Would that ambulance lead him to Krupin? Could it be that easy? Kennedy had made him promise that he wouldn’t make a move without her approval, but she would be fully aware that he was lying. Krupin’s death at his hands would leave her with Sokolov to deal with, but that wasn’t an insurmountable problem. He was a clever and ruthless man, but also one with many powerful enemies.
• • •
The car’s motor cut out, leaving Azarov coasting down the empty road. He’d erred on the side of anonymity when he’d bought a car not much better than the Škoda he’d been forced to abandon at Tarben Chkalov’s house. Now he was paying the price. Would Maxim Krupin survive because of a clogged fuel filter? Would it be a corroded spark plug wire that precipitated a nuclear exchange and allowed Krupin to escape retribution for what he’d done to Cara?
When the engine kicked in again, it sounded a bit stronger. He pressed the accelerator and the vehicle actually managed to accelerate to sixty kilometers per hour. His phone was still receiving a strong GPS signal, displaying the position of the ambulance as it entered a local airport that would be closed at this time of morning. Azarov switched to a satellite image and watched the ambulance pass by the terminal in favor of a runway along the southern edge.
The map showed a service road that circled the airport and he turned onto it, feeling the quality of the asphalt deteriorate. That, combined with the fact that he was forced to turn off the car’s headlights and navigate by the dim glow of the terminal, caused his progress to slow significantly.
The chain-link fence encircling the airport appeared on his right, providing him a point of reference as he curved around to the back of the facility. The ambulance’s headlights finally appeared in the distance, pulling to a stop next to a military transport plane.
The wind picked up with the arrival of dawn, covering the sound of his approach to a degree, but not so much that he was comfortable getting close. The motor cut out again and he released the accelerator, allowing the vehicle to glide to a stop about two hundred meters north of the plane.
Azarov got out and climbed the dripping wire fence, running crouched through the overgrown marshland on the other side. At fifty meters, he started to enter the glow thrown by the ambulance lights and illuminated cockpit, forcing him to drop to his stomach and crawl through the brush and mud.
His wool coat kept his torso dry but his pants were soaked through immediately, conducting the cold from the ground. He could hear voices but was unable to make out individual words as two men rolled Yuri Lebedev toward the plane’s open cargo bay. Nikita Pushkin and one other man remained near their vehicle, scanning the landscape with AN-94 assault rifles slung across their chests.
Azarov rolled to cake the back of his clothing with mud and then scooped up a handful to spread over his face and hair. It would be enough to allow him to creep forward another twenty-five meters before the risk of being seen was too great. Pushkin’s gaze swept toward him and Azarov squinted to reduce the reflection off his eyes.
Unable to close further, he could do little more than watch as the two men reappeared on the already rising cargo ramp. They jumped off and jogged back to the ambulance while the propellers started to turn. Pushkin’s attention was split as he shouted orders over the whine of the plane, and Azarov used the opportunity to gain another four meters.
To what end, he wasn’t certain. Krupin wasn’t there. At best, he was waiting for the plane somewhere else in Russia. But even that was far from guaranteed.
When the aircraft started to taxi, Pushkin and his men climbed back into the ambulance. Yuri Lebedev had been kidnapped, his family terrorized, and now he’d been handed off to the Russian air force. For good reason, Pushkin considered his job done.
The vehicle pulled away as the plane lumbered onto the runway in front of Azarov. A blast of wind and the illumination washed over him for a moment and then left him in dark stillness again.
He was about to call Joe Maslick to give him a sitrep and see if there was any way to track the plane, but instead rose to his feet and chased it. His fitness was far less than it had once been, but the image of Cara lying in the hospital propelled him at a speed that would have impressed even his disapproving former trainer.
He reached the tarmac, using the hard surface to accelerate to a full sprint. The plane was still positioning itself for takeoff, traveling at a speed that allowed Azarov to close on it. He aimed for the landing gear on the right side, fighting the gale generated by the propellers and managing to grab hold of the vertical pillar supporting the wheels. The roar in his ears was deafening as he leapt onto a steel bar protruding from the back of the assembly.
He’d used the only GPS tracker he had on the ambulance, leaving him with one option. He pulled his coat off as the plane began to accelerate, taking care not to allow it to get caught in the spinning tires.
His first attempt to tangle the heavy wool in the landing gear mechanism failed and the coat was almost blown from his hand. On his second try, he managed to snag it on something sharp.
The act of getting the coat secured while standing on the precarious, rain-soaked foothold had taken so much concentration that he hadn’t tracked on the plane’s speed. His perspective was badly distorted by the water lashing his face, leaving him no recourse but to simply let go. He curled into a ball and tried to protect his head as he half slid, half rolled across the tarmac. When he finally came to a stop sprawled in a shallow puddle, he didn’t immediately move, instead watching the plane lift into the air. Eventually, he began moving his limbs in a methodical search for broken bones or paralysis. Once he’d confirmed that everything was more or less functional, he laid back and let the rainwater run down his face.
The secure satphone had been given to him by the CIA and he assumed they were using it to keep tabs on him. If it managed to stay on the plane and the signal was powerful enough, they could track it. Would it lead directly to Krupin? Probably not. He was too cautious for that. But it would get them one step closer.
CHAPTER 37
RIGA
LATVIA
ONCE again, the world around them had turned deceptively normal. Rapp and Coleman were riding in an SUV driven by a young Latvian army officer wearing civilian clothing. They were west of the Riga airport, cruising along the A5 with the windows open and the lights on. The only thing that hinted of something amiss was the unusually heavy 3 a.m. traffic. Residents fleeing the city.
Rapp spotted a formation of lights in the sky, following them with his eyes for a moment before registering what they were. Not Russians. Latvian air force choppers headed for the safety of Poland.
“From a base to the southwest,” their driver Jarus explained. “They’re late. It should have been completely abandoned by now.”
“The Russians will target that, too,” Rapp said. “How far will they be from where we’re headed?”
“Perhaps two kilometers?”
“So, they could be on top of us too fast for us to react.”
“Yes, but it’s not likely. The base has been heavily booby-trapped and mined. They’ll have their hands full.”
He took an exit and headed east on a two-lane road cut through the trees. Unlike the highway, it was completely empty.
“Kind of eerie, isn’t it?” Coleman said from the backseat. “The calm before the storm.”
Another turn put them on a dirt track that penetrated into the forest. It was narrow enough that Rapp had to close his window to keep tree branches from hitting him in the face.
“Do your people know we’re comi
ng?” Rapp asked.
“Most likely. But communications aren’t terribly reliable.”
Coleman and the Latvians had created an interesting experiment in unconventional warfare. The theory was solid, as was the country’s preparation, but it all relied on the destruction of the chain of command. Would it work in practice? Isolation and chaos were operating environments that Rapp had become accustomed to over the years, but soldiers tended to like more structure.
“Take it easy, then. I don’t want to die from friendly fire before the war even starts.”
Jarus took his advice and slowed. The headlights barely managed to penetrate the foliage and Rapp leaned forward, squinting through the windshield. Finally, he grabbed the young man’s arm. “Stop.”
Jarus released the accelerator and let the vehicle roll to a halt, but didn’t seem sure why. “I was told—”
He fell silent when five men armed with assault rifles appeared from the trees.
“Turn off your lights and roll your windows back down,” Rapp ordered.
The men approached through the darkness, one putting the barrel of his weapon against Rapp’s temple. A flashlight snapped on and just as quickly snapped off.
“Jarus. You’re overdue,” the man said in English. “The Russians have crossed our border.”
“What? When?”
“Only a few minutes ago. It’s begun.”
Rapp pushed the gun away from his head and stepped out of the vehicle, savoring the silence that wouldn’t last for much longer. The chances of averting this war had always been around zero, but somewhere in the back of his mind he’d held out a little hope. Now it was gone.
They abandoned the vehicle and hiked through the woods to a canvas-covered cart that had bogged down in the soft ground. It had been designed to be pulled by a horse, but for some reason that critical component was missing.