The Fall of Night

by Christopher Nuttall

  “Not terrorists,” Meyer said. He remembered the brief deadly encounter with the Russian fighter. “Russians.”

  The Frenchman didn’t argue. “Can you do a radar sweep?”

  Meyer had thought about that; he needed intelligence, but lighting up the radar was one way to guarantee that every Russian in the area would know his location. He could pick up the sweeps of the French AWACS now – it struck him that it might be the only AWACS left in Europe – and knew that he didn’t dare refuse. That AWACS had just become the most vital aircraft in Europe.

  “Operating,” he said. He smiled suddenly. “What’s your name?”

  “Lieutenant Jacques Montebourg,” the Frenchman said. “It was meant to be my first command and…”

  Meyer could fill in the details himself. The French would have given young Montebourg a chance to prove himself, unaware that he would have to deal with a real emergency. The radar sweep had been brief and powerful, but it depressed him; there were hundreds of aircraft in the air, some of them clearly warplanes. There was no sign of his former wingmen.

  “I hope you got all that,” he said, grimly. “Do you have a place to land?”

  “I don’t know,” Montebourg said. He sounded tired. “The base where we are normally stationed is in flames, and Paris is on fire; there are airliners nearby unable to land because of the terrorists. Sir…where the hell do we go?”

  Mayer stared down at the data. There was a pattern there, aircraft that…were not panicking. They’d come out of Russia, he saw; they were heading towards Germany, and western Poland. There was something about them that worried him; he was sure, looking at it, that they were suspicious.

  “Look at them,” he said, detailing his suspicions. “What do you think they’re up to?”

  The kid, to give him his due, didn’t hesitate. “Can you investigate them?”

  “I’m going to have to,” Mayer said. “Watch as long as you can, then head for Britain unless you can get an airfield in France.”

  He rolled the Eurofighter over and launched the bird towards the unknown aircraft, noting in passing that their IFF signals didn’t match with their behaviour. If they were in denial, they should have been preparing to land…but they weren’t. They were going to fly over Szczecin-Goleniów Airport, almost in formation. The implications worried him; Szczecin-Goleniów Airport was in the west of Poland, near Germany and the German border. It was one of the places that had been marked as a possible emergency landing site for the EUROFOR air support squadrons…and should have been outside the realm of targeting possibilities for any attacker. The faint suggestions of aerial combat, further to the east, suggested that the Russians – if Russians they were, but who else could they be? – were winning. “I am going stealthy now.”

  “Good luck,” Montebourg said.

  The Eurofighter was not a pure stealth fighter, not like the newer fighters that had been produced by the Americans, the Japanese and even the advanced Eurofighter Tempest. It did have a very small radar cross-section and, without any active transponders, should have nothing calling serious attention to itself. If there were ground forces below that were friendly, in other words not Russians, they might try to shoot him down because he wasn’t broadcasting an IFF signal. There wasn’t a choice; he didn’t dare draw enemy attention until he knew what the hell was going on.

  Air traffic started to grow far larger as his radars started to look further into Poland. Normally, the skies would be stacked with commercial airliners, but now there were only military transports…and he could see smoke rising from dozens of different places on the ground. Meyer had a sudden sense of what had happened to all of the commercial jets and shuddered; the Russians would have just shot them all down and never worried about the loss of life.

  His sensors recorded everything as they grew closer, relaying them back to Montebourg. A Russian Mainstay – a Beriev A-50 AWACS aircraft, one of a hundred the Russians had produced and heavily modified over the years – was operating in the air over Poland, protected by a swarm of Russian fighters. Other heavy Russian transports seemed to be dominating the skies over Poland, while tankers and bombers floated around, picking on targets as they chose. The sheer scale of the effort was daunting…and the lack of any effective opposition was chilling. Had the Russians secured so much control that they could fly so close to Germany without fear?

  He cursed softly as another flight of Russians headed into Western Poland, their escorts peeling off and returning to the tankers for refuelling. The entire area was lit up by hundreds of different air-search radar systems, watching out for possible attackers, and he realised that if he went any closer, he would almost certainly be detected. A flight of Russian transports rose into the air from Poland, heading back towards Russia, and he realised that he was looking at the greatest airborne invasion operation in human history. By the time the Poles rallied, they would be defeated; it was neat, elegant, and almost unstoppable.

  They’re going to land at Szczecin-Goleniów Airport, he realised. No one in Germany would have the view that he had of the invasion, not until it was too late…and unless Montebourg managed to make contact with someone before the AWACS ran out of fuel, it would never be useful to anyone. He risked a microburst transmission, sending the data back to Montebourg, and then turned to see the unknown aircraft. Right on the border of the Vaterland…

  The mystery aircraft were drawing closer and closer to him; he tried to hail them and received no response, not even a nervous pilot wondering what the warplane was doing, so close to a civilian aircraft. They looked civilian, he saw, as he swung the aircraft over the jet liner, except…there was something wrong.

  ***

  “Shit,” Lapotev hissed. The alarm in his voice was unpleasant. “He has us; he’ll see the false images and then he’ll kill us.”

  “Take him out,” Aliyev snapped. There were only five minutes until the jump began. A single Eurofighter could not be allowed to ruin it, not now; he wouldn’t allow it. He would sooner die than fail Russia. “Kill that bastard!”

  Lapotev flicked a switch. “Done,” he said. The airliner shook, but if it was from the missile or the passage of the Eurofighter, Aliyev couldn’t tell. “You’d better get back and ready to jump.”

  ***

  Ping…!

  For a long moment, Mayer’s mind refused to grasp what had happened; the airliner, the innocent-looking airliner, had lit off a short-ranged military-grade air search radar, more powerful than the one that the MIG-41 he’d killed had carried. He had never seriously contemplated firing on a civilian airliner, not even if he had to prevent a repeat of September 11th and he hesitated. Fatally. The missile blasted away from its hidden launcher…and struck the Eurofighter before he could react. Mayer’s life came to a sudden end…as the first paratroopers began to fall on the airport far below.

  The Battle for Szczecin-Goleniów Airport had begun.

  Chapter Twenty-Two: Strike from the Sky, Take Two

  I can picture in my mind a world without war, a world without hate. And I can picture us attacking that world, because they'd never expect it.

  Jack Handey

  Polish Airspace, Near Szczecin

  Hans Cooper loved the airport.

  His father had taken him on a visit to see his family in Germany and Poland, a long holiday that was a chance to reconnect with relatives that he hadn’t seen for years; the ten-year-old had been delighted and only wished that his mother had been able to come. Hans had begged his father to take him to each and every one of the airports they passed, and their relatives had been more than happy to provide transport. The airport in western Poland - Szczecin-Goleniów Airport – was no different; he had even been able to stand on the balcony and watch the aircraft come in to land.

  The chaos that had broken out had passed unnoticed by Hans; he had little interest in anything, but the aircraft, including the massive jumbo jet that had been taxiing onto the runway before the chaos had begun. There were thousands
of people milling about in the airport, but Hans only had eyes for the aircraft…including the fighter that had flown overhead at very low level and disappeared into the distance. A Polish policeman was trying to shout orders, only to be drowned out by the crowd, and Hans barely noticed. The flight of aircraft high overhead held his attention.

  His father had bought him a pair of binoculars. Some airports had been reluctant to have him use them on their premises, for reasons that made no sense to him or his father, but the Poles had allowed him to use them…or, at least, they hadn’t tried to stop him. Hans was of the age where limited defiance was the ‘cool’ thing to do, but at the airport, he was wrapped up in the joy of seeing the aircraft. He could see the aircraft…and then the aircraft started to launch paratroopers out into the air.

  “Dad,” he shouted, delightedly. “Those are paratroopers!”

  Hans had studied military aircraft as well with a child’s fascination. He knew what paratroopers were; it was his dream, if he failed in his first dream to become a fighter pilot, to become a paratrooper and jump out of planes all day. His guidance counsellor had pointed out that it was a hard and dangerous life, and not all of it included jumping, but Hans had been determined. Besides, his dad had said that he was ten years old…and that was really too early for the schools to be trying to fix him with a career path.

  He heard the screams and shouts from behind him as the parachutes fell through the air, heading towards the ground, and laughed at them. What possible danger could there be? Weren’t the grown-ups caught in the excitement of the moment? Hans whooped with joy as the parachutes opened, revealing the men below as their fall slowed almost to a standstill, just above the runways. It was exciting, almost like the air show he seen when he was younger; there was nothing to match the sight of aircraft and men doing cool things. His father was tugging at him, trying to get him to move, and Hans refused to budge. He wouldn’t lose the chance to see what was about to happen.

  “Move,” his father said. His hand impacted firmly with Hans’ rear. Hans squawked in outrage – his father rarely spanked him and then only when he was very bad – and tried to struggle. His father was much stronger and pulled Hans away mercilessly; he opened his mouth and started to bawl. “Hans, we have to move!”

  The parachutists had landed, their parachutes drifting away; Hans could see them as they formed up rapidly into units, a perfect display of formation landing. Alarms were going off everywhere, but to him it was only part of the excitement and he cursed his father for trying to get him away from the sight. It wasn’t fair…

  And then the shooting started.

  ***

  Szczecin-Goleniów Airport was no different to Airport One, at least in general concept; long runways, terminals and two control towers. Aliyev was unimpressed as the long fall towards the ground slowed sharply and his feet touched the ground; it would be almost impossible for the Poles to defend it unless they had an entire regiment dug in around the terminals. There hadn’t even been any shooting; the attacks on Airport One had been far more dangerous than Szczecin-Goleniów, so far.

  “Form up,” he snapped, trusting in his subordinates to know what they were doing. Alarms were sounding everywhere, but there was no sign of any real resistance at all; the shock and awe of their sudden arrival should paralyse the defenders long enough for them to lose…if there were any defenders. The intelligence reports had stated that there was a stand-by anti-terrorist unit in the airport, one with military-grade training and equipment, but it wouldn’t be any match for his people. “Advance!”

  The parachutists broke into a run as they charged towards their targets. A handful of dark-clad figures lifted weapons and tried to fight, overcoming their shock; the Russians mowed them down and kept coming. Aliyev took a second to check their bodies and realised that they had been security guards, completely outmatched by real military people. The terminal rose up in front of him, frightened eyes peering out through massive glass windows, somehow unaware that his men could come right through the glass. The strike teams moved fast and threw their grenades; the glass shattered, sending fragments flying over the civilians. Many of them screamed as glass cut into their bodies; Aliyev had no time at all to worry about them. It was vital that they took the airport largely intact.

  The other parachutists fanned out as they crashed into the terminal. Civilians scattered in front of them; a policeman lifted a weapon and fired once at a commando, who took the shot on his body armour and only staggered backwards. Aliyev felt for him; the impact felt like being punched in the gut, even if he had been lucky enough to escape real physical harm. He should have escaped such harm; the weapon the Pole had fired hadn’t been a serious pistol at all. Aliyev’s team shot him down anyway.

  “Everyone get down on the floor, hands on your heads,” he bellowed, and cracked the skull of a fat aggressive German who started to shout at him. His wife, equally fat, threw herself to her husband’s side and tried to tend to him, until Aliyev ordered her to lie down with the others. There were hundreds of civilians in the airport, he realised as they fanned out through the building, along with employees and workers in the airport. They were sheep in front of his men; only a handful even tried to hide. They were dragged out and placed with the others as the reinforcements rushed into the terminal. The remainder of their supplies would be landing now…and then the aircraft would be heading back to Russia.

  Aliyev and his men were on their own.

  “Listen,” he bellowed, in Polish. He would repeat himself in German and English in a moment; the sight of a small boy, weeping, reminded him far too much of Groznyy. “This is a military emergency; anyone who refuses to follow our orders will be shot. Follow orders and we promise that you will not be harmed, nor will you be killed, raped, hurt or forced to help us. Remain calm; parents, keep your children calm and everything will be well.”

  He repeated himself in two other languages and then led his main unit up the stairs towards the control tower. The airport had two, redundancy was built into the system, and he was certain that the Poles would be screaming for help as loudly as they could. He knew that both of the nearby barracks had been hit by missiles, but there was no telling how much damage had actually been done until it was too late; he was uncomfortably aware that he might find out when the Polish infantry launched an attack. The stairs had been blocked; several shots rang out as they approached.

  “That’s the antiterrorist unit,” Captain Alexander Vatutin muttered. Aliyev had given command of the preliminary work to his most trusted subordinate. “They’re dug themselves in there and we can’t get up the steps without using the grenades.”

  Aliyev scowled. Grenades meant that they risked damaging vital equipment they needed desperately, but there was no choice. He muttered orders and the team deployed, each one holding a light fragmentation grenade; at his command, they hurled them into the stairwell, and then charged as soon as they exploded. More gunshots rang out, but the firing was no longer perfectly targeted; the commandos shot the Poles before they could recover from the grenades. A handful of Poles tried to escape and were mercilessly shot in the back; Aliyev led the charge towards the second locked door, leading into the control room.

  He grinned and knocked. A female voice called out a question in Polish. “Who is it?”

  Aliyev forced himself to speak Polish again. “It’s the team,” he said. “You’re safe now and you can open the door.”

  “Fuck off, Russian,” the woman shouted back. Aliyev shrugged; it had been a long shot, but it had been worth a try. She probably knew all of the members of the antiterrorist team by heart, perhaps even cock size, the nasty part of his mind whispered. “We’re calling for help and you’d better be gone when it comes!”

  Aliyev nodded to two of the commandos, who placed small charges on the door and melted through the metal. There were screams from inside as the metal ran like water and the door was kicked in; he saw seven terrified men and women…and one woman, sitting in the centr
e of the room, trying to look confident and failing miserably. She would have been a beauty in her youth; the sullen defiance on her face twisted it into the realm of ugliness.

  “Everyone, hands in the air, now,” Aliyev barked, as the commandos charged into the room. There was no resistance, but they didn’t dare take chances; they grabbed the operators, secured them and left them tussled up on the floor. Some of the civilians were whimpering; like most civilians in their position, they were used to the idea of emergencies taking place a long way away. “If you attempt to resist, you will be shot!”

  He checked the consoles quickly. The civilian wavebands had been jammed, but they were still intact; the emergency power generator in the airport had taken over from the main power supply, which should have been cut off by the missiles or a commando strike team. It hardly mattered; they had radar units, but no easy way of using them to get instructions to the handful of European fighters that had managed to get into the air. Emergencies were things that happened to other people, far, far away. They would have prepared for a terrorist attack, but a full-scale military assault?