Brown, Dale - Patrick McLanahan 09

by Warrior Class (v1. 1)

  The threat warning receiver was blaring constantly. The H-16s were still behind him about thirty kilometers away. Any second now, if they still had any radar-guided missiles, they would—

  DEEDLEDEEDLEDEEDLE! came the missile launch warning. Stoica pulled his throttles to idle, popped chaff, and started a tight right break. He could hear Ycgorov’s head slam against the left side of the cockpit, and he wondered how much brain damage the guy had suffered.. ..

  “Where am I?” Yegorov moaned.

  “Gennadi! Wake up!” Stoica shouted. “Don’t touch any controls! Do you hear me? Don’t touch anything!” Stoica knew that a crew member awakening suddenly while sleeping in a cockpit or after passing out from lack of oxygen or g forces will sometimes grab something, responding to a dream or a sensation—they'll punch themselves out, drop weapons, or even shut down engines.

  “I... I can't breathe ..

  “We’re defensive, Gennadi, trying to get away from a gaggle of Turkish fighters,” Stoica said, grunting through the g forces. “I need you to jettison the pylons—”

  “Fighters!” Yegorov suddenly shouted. He’d obviously just got a look at the threat receiver, which depicted three enemy fighters and at least one enemy missile bearing down on him, “Break! Break! I’m ejecting chaff—!”

  “I’m rolled out,” Stoica said. “No chaff.” The jammers had taken care of the uplink signal, and clouds of radar-reflecting chaff strewn behind them had drawn the Turkish missile away. “Are you all right, Gennadi?”

  “I think so.”

  “Slowly, carefully, jettison the pylons,” Stoica said. “They’re empty. Don't jettison any other weapons, just the pylons.” Stoica rolled straight and level. “I’m wings-level, Gennadi. Punch ’em off.”

  “What .. ?”

  “I said, punch the goddamned pylons .. . !” But Stoica heard yet another DEEDLE DEEDLE DEEDLE! radar lock-on warning. He had no choice. He banked steeply right and climbed into the enemy fighter. Seconds later, he got another lock-on tone, and he fired one R-60 missile at him from an internal wing launcher. Stoica immediately faked left, dropped chaff and flares, and then rolled right and descended back to less than a hundred meters above the sea. He saw a bright flash off his left side—he hoped that was another Turkish fighter on his way to taking a swim. “Gennadi, punch the pylons off, now.!”

  “Ack . .. acknowledged.” Yegorov said weakly. Stoica rolled wings-level just as he felt a rumble through the aircraft as the weapon pylons popped off.

  “Fault indication,” Yegorov said weakly. Stoica glanced at the master caution light, then at the caution panel. No problem—a fault in an empty launcher—and he punched the caution light off and ignored it. There were only two F-l6s behind him now—he’d got another one!—and the last two had their radars on but could not lock on to him. He was stealthy again!

  Stoica jammed in full military power and started a gentle climb back toward the east. Now he had the advantage. He lined up on the nearest F-16, using his radar threat receiver until the infrared search-and-track system locked on, then fired another missile from an internal launcher from less than six kilometers away. That missile tracked dead-on and hit seconds later. Another kill!

  Stoica considered going back after the remaining bombers. Now that he was stealthy again, the bombers were his to plink apart as he chose, and killing F-16 Fighters was not much of a challenge right now for him. But as he scanned the warning and caution panel again, he knew he was done for the day— and maybe for a long time. Sure enough, the internal missile launchers had a fault—no, not just a fault this time, a major failure, a launcher hot message, meaning there was an electrical Fire in the wing. “Gennadi, launcher hot, cut off weapons power now!" Fortunately, Yegorov was alert enough to do it, and the launcher hot warning light went off a few seconds after he isolated power There were still a few yellow advisory lights on, including the launcher shutter door jam, the same problem that had been dogging them for months now. but there were no red warning lights, and for now they were okay.

  It didn’t mean they were out of danger, only that they probably weren’t going to fly apart in the next few minutes. Good time to get out of here. The remaining bombers were indeed tempting, and he still had his internal cannon to use instead of the internal R-60 missiles, but that would be pushing his luck. He had already scored kills against two Ukrainian BackFire bombers and two Turkish F-16 Falcon Fighters. That was a pretty good night’s work. Plus, his head was still ready to split open, and Yegorov was certainly in no shape to fly the plane. Stoica turned the plane westbound again toward Codlea, again thanking the stars he was alive and victorious.

  “Stand by, Besstrashny; ” they heard a few moments later. He read off a series of geographical coordinates. “That is your exit point from Alliance waters, Besstrashny. Steer directly for that point. We will be monitoring your departure with patrol aircraft Any deviation will result in an immediate attack, and this time we will not abort the missiles.”

  “Acknowledged,” Boriskov spat. “Combat, Bridge, what’s happening up there? There is a Russian Fighter up there?”

  “We don’t know if it’s Russian or not,” the tactical action officer responded. “All we know is that one Ukrainian bomber and two Turkish fighters were suddenly shot down. The unidentified aircraft may have been shot down, too—the Turkish fighters seemed to have lost contact.”

  Captain Boriskov smiled and nodded enthusiastically— whoever it was, he should be given a medal, even if he got shot himself. “Did the bombers depart? Where are they?”

  “They just shut down radars, but they are still up there, just outside our antiaircraft missile range.”

  Too bad—Boriskov would've liked one more chance to get that tanker. “What's the situation around the tanker?”

  “Surrounded by numerous vessels and aircraft now, sir,” the radar operator replied. Boriskov went out to the port wing and scanned the horizon aft. There was still a very bright glow where the Ustinov was—it was going to burn for a very, very long time.

  He hated to leave a fight like this, Boriskov thought. Another nation had actually shot a supersonic antiship missile at a Russian warship, in the Black Sea—once considered a Russian lake—and he could do nothing but turn tail. It was humiliating.

  But as bad as running was to him, the idea of being a part of defending scum like Pavel Kazakov was even worse. If the story that terrorist had told was true, that Russian president Valentin Sen’kov was part of a deal with Kazakov to use the Russian military to help secure land to build an oil pipeline just to fill their own pockets, that was truly humiliating.

  Boriskov didn’t like being pushed around by anyone—not someone calling themselves the Black Sea Alliance, not by a worthless politician, and especially not by a thug like Pavel Kazakov.

  TEN

  Codlea, Romania The next morning

  "He let them go?” Pavel Kazakov shouted into the secure satellite telephone He was in his office at his secret base in central Romania, in the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains. “That damned destroyer captain was just a few miles away from my tanker, and he let them go?”

  “He did not ‘let them go’, Pavel,” Colonel-General Valeriy Zhurbenko, Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, retorted angrily, speaking from a secure communications room in the Kremlin “He had six large aircraft with antiship cruise missiles bearing down on him. He had two choices—turn around as ordered, or get blasted out of the water. Besides, he thought there was nothing he could do—the terrorists set off an explosive on the tanker, and he thought it was on its way to the bottom of the Black Sea anyway.”

  Kazakov turned angrily at his satellite television set, tuned to,CNN- “Oh really? Then why am l watching the damned Turks off-loading my oil onto their tankers in their harbor?” It was true: there was no fire or explosion on the tanker, at least not one set by the terrorists. Shortly after the Turkish Navy and Coast Guard had arrived on the scene, the tremendous fire in
the forward hold had mysteriously disappeared; it had turned out it was in no danger of sinking after all. The tanker had continued under its own power, and pulled into the Turkish Navy base at Eregli. As if by magic, another tanker happened to be at anchor in the vicinity, empty of course, and it was pressed into service transferring oil to it from the Ustinov.

  The terrorists were now here to be seen.

  The stories of the Ustinov's crew were even more fantastic. There were only two terrorists, they claimed. They were invincible. Bullets bounced off them like spitballs. They carried no weapons. They shot lightning bolts from their eyes and carried rifles taller than a man that fired bullets as big as a sausage that could stop a ship many kilometers away.

  “What in hell is going on here?" Kazakov fumed. “I’m surrounded by cowards and incompetents. What is the government doing to get my tanker and my oil back? This amounts to an act of piracy on the high seas! That tanker was flying a Russian flag. What are you doing about it?”

  “The Supreme Tribunal is appealing to the World Court on your behalf, as a Russian citizen," Zhurbenko replied. "Unfortunately, your ship was struck and damaged by illegal activity—namely, the unauthorized discharge of a weapon—in Turkish treaty waters. That brought the matter up before the Turkish military. The vessel was clearly in danger of sinking, both by the terrorists acts and the Russian Navy’s actions, so the matter was again transferred to the Turkish Coast Guard. Minister of Commerce, and Director of Environmental Protection. There will certainly be a criminal and a military investigation."

  “This all sounds like bureaucratic mumbo-jumbo. General." Kazakov retorted. “When do I get my ship back? When do I get my oil back? That product is worth twenty-five million dollars!"

  “There is another matter. Pavel." Zhurbenko said.

  “And that is?"

  “You happen to be under indictment in Turkey for narcotics smuggling, murder, robbery, securities fraud, tax evasion, and a half-dozen other felony crimes," Zhurbenko said. “It is no secret that you own both the ship and the oil, so both have been seized by the Turkish courts because of your failure to appear in a Turkish court to answer charges against you."

  “What?" Kazakov shouted. “They can’t do that!"

  “They can and they have," Zhurbenko said. “Your bond in all of your indictments equaled precisely five hundred million dollars, which is how much the ship and the oil are worth, so both have been seized by the Turkish courts.”

  “I want you to get that ship and that oil back,” Kazakov snapped. “I don’t care what you have to do. Send in the military. send in Spetsnaz, kidnap the Turkish president—I don’t care! Just get them back! I will not be thumb-tied by a bunch of Turkish lawyers and bureaucrats!”

  “The government has its own problems right now,” Zhurbenko said. ”In case you haven’t noticed, the lid is exploding off our little deal. The taped conversations between Thom and Sen’kov and between us at Metyor have been broadcast in a hundred countries and twenty languages around the world. When I... when we leaked the details of the deal between Sen'kov and Thom, we sealed our fate and Sen’kov’s as well. No one is even paying any attention to the American president—the spineless popinjay has admitted everything, and the world loves him for sacrificing so much to rescue his men and women from the evil clutches of the Russians, or some such nonsense All eyes are on us. And I think Sen’kov may have found a way to insulate himself from this whole mess—after all, he never gave any orders and never authorized any of this.”

  “I have plenty to implicate Sen’kov,” Kazakov said angrily. “I have bank records, wire transfers, and account numbers in seven banks around the world. I’ve paid him millions to get him to issue orders and deploy the army in my favor.”

  ”All his bank accounts are numbered, all anonymous,” Zhurbenko said. ”Not one of them points to Sen’kov. Besides, the Russian constitution prohibits Sen’kov from prosecution for anything he does while in office, and if the Duma tries to impeach him—which they will not do, he is too powerful for that—he can simply dissolve it. The worst that will happen to him is he’ll be accused of being a dupe. It is I and the others in his cabinet and security council that will go to prison.”

  As if to punctuate Zhurbenko’s words, the images on CNN shifted to demonstrators outside German and Russian embassies around the world, from Albania to Moscow, from Norway to South Africa, protesting the actions of the German and Russian armies in the Balkans. The entire world now feared a Russo-German Axis alliance, another attempt to occupy all of Europe, and perhaps even a third world war—but this time, with no help from the United States expected, a successful one.

  All this, CNN said, because of Pavel Kazakov and his bloodthirsty greed. Kazakov had once been feared for his reputation. Fear had been replaced by grudging respect for his entrepreneurial audacity and success. Now he was hated. He was the world’s Public Enemy Number One. He could never walk anywhere in the real world, even with an army of bodyguards. Even without a reward on his head—and Pavel had no doubt one was soon going to be announced—he was not safe from anyone. Who wouldn’t want to be known as the one who’d rid the world of such a monster?

  Kazakov’s eyes grew narrow with anger, but slowly his logical mind took over from his emotions, and he started to devise a plan. “Then I assume,” he asked sarcastically, “you are speaking to me from a private chartered aircraft taking you over the Mediterranean to some nameless African republic with no extradition treaty with the Russian Federation?”

  “I am not a rich drug-dealing bastard like you, Kazakov,” Zhurbenko said. “I did all this for Russia. Yes, I took your money, and I hope I can get my wife and sons out of the country so they can enjoy it before the Interior Ministry takes away everything I own. But I did all this for mother Russia, to regain some of our lost power and influence around the world. I will not abandon my post or my country.”

  “Then I suppose you have to live with your decision, General,” Kazakov said casually.

  “Oh, I can live with myself just fine, Pavel,” Zhurbenko said. “Russia again has troops in the Balkans and throughout Wastem Europe—all legal, all sanctioned by the United Nations—the NATO alliance has been fractured, we have a powerful new ally in Germany, and Caspian oil is making my country rich. I am proud of what I’ve done for my country, Kazakov, even if I end up going to prison for it. The loss of your tanker and your million barrels of oil is of no consequence to me.”

  “Then I think our business is at an end,” Kazakov said. “You enjoy being a good little soldier in Lefortovo Prison. Remember, if you drop the bar of soap in the shower, don’t bend over to pick it up.”

  Kazakov slammed the phone down so hard, he nearly broke the receiver on his three-thousand-dollar satellite phone, He had tried to sound casual and flippant on the phone with Zhurbenko, as if the loss of half a billion dollars was no big deal for him. but in actuality it was a huge blow. Since he owned the oil from the well to the refinery, including the terminals all along the way, and since he had numerous “side deals” with the individual countries to transport the oil, none of his product or the ships that carried it across the Black Sea was insured—not that many companies around the world would sell insurance to a drug smuggler and gangster. In addition, his investors expected to be paid whether or not the oil made it to the pipeline, and that was seven and a half million dollars that had to come out of his own pocket. There was no interest on this money, no grace period, and no declaring bankruptcy—it was either pay up or be hunted for the rest of his life.

  Further, the loss of one tanker by some shadowy, obviously powerful terrorist outfit—probably some CIA or SAS strike team—put the brakes on any more shipments on tankers bearing his name. That meant leasing other tankers, and that didn’t come cheap In any case, his oil was as much of a target as his tankers were, and shipping companies would either simply refuse to transport any Metyorgaz crude, or charge a hefty premium to do so. to compensate for the possibility of another terrorist
attack.

  There was only one answer: divert the world's attention away from him and onto another topic.

  He left his private office and stormed out to the aircraft hangar. Although they continued to move the Metyor-179 Tye nee from place to place on a regular basis, most of Metyor’s known or suspected bases in Georgia. Kazakhstan, Russia, and Bulgaria were under heavy surveillance, so the base in Romania seemed to be the safest. He marched past the security guards and found Pyotr Fursenko standing in front of the Mt- 179 stealth aircraft, worriedly discussing the streaks of black and gray on the leading edge—the internal missile launchers. “Doctor, get the aircraft ready to go tonight,” he ordered.

  The technician Fursenko was talking to stepped away, thankful to get away from Pavel Kazakov. “We have some problems, sir,” Fursenko said.

  “I’m not interested in problems right now, Fursenko, only action and results.” Fursenko said nothing, only looked at the hangar floor. “Well? What is wrong now?”

  “There was more damage to the wing structure after the last missile launches—”

  “I thought you had that problem solved.”

  “We could not reengineer the internal launcher system and still keep the plane operational and on around-the-clock alert as you wanted,” Fursenko explained. “We could do nothing else but make minor repairs and impose operational limitations. The crew was restricted to firing internal missiles only in an emergency, after all other missiles were expended, only if the aircraft was in danger, and with a zero-point-eight Mach speed restriction, two-g acceleration, and five point zero angle-of-attack limits.” Fursenko could tell that this flurry of aeronautical technospeak was giving his young boss a headache, so he quickly decided to conclude with more or less happy news: “But we have repaired the damage, and I think we can be ready to fly.”