The Moscow Offensive

by Dale Brown

  “Yes, Mr. President.” Kurakin nodded. He hesitated, knowing how little Russia’s leader liked hearing unwelcome suggestions. “It might be best to delay implementing Shakh i Mat until we can build in more layers of operational secrecy. If Martindale or the Poles pass their information on to the Americans—”

  “Checkmate will proceed on schedule,” Gryzlov said, cutting him off with a sharp, decisive rap on his desk. “Whatever personnel files and equipment records were stolen from Bataysk could not have compromised our operational plans. Meanwhile, your forces are already in position. Delay now would only increase the risk of the Americans stumbling across some of our people by accident.”

  Again, Kurakin nodded. There was truth in the president’s blunt assertion. While internal security in the United States was so lax as to be almost nonexistent, there was always the chance of one of his teams being caught in a routine traffic stop gone wrong or in some other slipup.

  “Besides, Vladimir,” Gryzlov continued with a smile. “The fact that Martindale knows he has a new Russian ‘competitor’ is essentially meaningless. Even if he somehow persuades Barbeau and others that he’s telling the truth, what can they do?” He leaned back in his chair. “That is the beauty of our plan, is it not? We are co-opting the same tactic of plausible deniability so often used by the Americans to evade responsibility for Scion’s own actions.”

  Privately, Kurakin suspected almost no one would swallow Gryzlov’s claims of innocence once the Americans figured out what was really going on. Oh, he supposed that a few neutrals and a handful of the weaker Western-allied powers might be willing to choose a convenient lie over the inconvenient truth. But no major world player would buy the idea of a freelance, rogue Russian military corporation operating outside Moscow’s command and control.

  Still, he concluded, handling the inevitable diplomatic and military fallout from this operation would be a problem for the president to solve later. His particular and immediate task was simpler. His job was to make sure that RKU’s attacks were structured to cause maximum confusion and to inflict as much damage as possible in a short period of time. The more confusion, the longer it would take the U.S. to pin this operation on Moscow. And the more damage his forces caused, the more difficult it would be for the Americans to retaliate effectively against the Motherland.

  Kurakin came back to the present moment. Wisely or unwisely, President Gryzlov had made his decision: Operatsiya Shakh i Mat would proceed. Julius Caesar’s comment on crossing the Rubicon, declaring war against Pompey and the Roman senate came to mind. Alea iacta est. The die is cast. So now, as a loyal soldier, he must do his best to make sure that die landed with the winning number faceup.

  “Yes, Mr. President,” he said simply.

  “Good. I’m glad that’s settled,” Gryzlov said, sounding satisfied. “So now we can move on to the details. First, have your staff planners finally settled on a first target? Or are they still pissing around with their maps and briefing books?”

  With an effort, Kurakin suppressed a quick flash of irritation. Selecting the most vulnerable and valuable targets from the wealth of information gathered by his covert recon groups was no easy matter in the first place. But it was child’s play compared with the work required to develop coordinated movement and assault plans that made the most effective use of RKU’s war robots—enabling them to arrive in striking distance in secret and then to escape undetected.

  “We do have a recommendation, Mr. President,” he said finally. “We propose launching Checkmate’s first blow to cause maximum damage to our country’s most dangerous enemy.”

  “Show me.”

  Kurakin pulled out his laptop and connected it to Gryzlov’s ultrasecure private network. Completely independent of any Kremlin servers connected to the outside world, this network was designed to be almost impossible for hackers to penetrate. Only the president’s most trusted subordinates were granted access or allowed to connect their own devices. Periodic sweeps by Q Directorate specialists checked for any signs of infiltration or hidden malware.

  A map of the western United States appeared on the large LED screen set into Gryzlov’s desk.

  Kurakin tapped a key on his laptop. The map zoomed in, revealing a stretch of high desert in northern Nevada nestled in among several mountain ranges. A target icon blinked into existence on top of what looked like an airfield. “As you can see, there are only a few highways we can use to move our KVMs into range of this objective. But that same relative isolation ensures a significant delay before regular American military forces can react to our assault. By conducting simultaneous cruise-missile strikes at key choke points, we can further—”

  “Permission denied,” Gryzlov said quietly.

  Startled, Kurakin looked away from the projected map. “Excuse me, Mr. President?”

  “I know you’re not deaf, Major General,” the president said. “You heard me perfectly. This proposed target is off the table, at least for now.”

  “But why?”

  “Because,” Gryzlov said patiently, “if we play our cards right, the Americans themselves will take care of those troublemakers. We won’t even have to lift a finger. Or fire a single missile.”

  For a moment, just a moment, Kurakin saw red. What the hell kind of manipulative game was the president playing with him? Only years of ingrained discipline prevented him from throwing a punch right into the younger man’s smug face. That and the certainty that doing so would mean a painful and lingering death. Gennadiy Gryzlov was not a forgiving man.

  With difficulty, he regained a small measure of control over his emotions. “I see,” he said through gritted teeth. “Does this mean you’ve already chosen another target of your own, sir?”

  “That’s correct,” Gryzlov agreed. He held up a hand in apology. “I’m sorry to have sprung this on you so suddenly, Vladimir. But we’re being handed a golden opportunity . . . one we would be fools to ignore.”

  He tapped the slick surface of the computer built into his desk. Instantly, Kurakin’s operational map disappeared. In its place, short clips from several recent American television news programs scrolled across the screen, accompanied by subtitles in Russian. When they ended, another map appeared—this one centered on the southeastern United States. A single red targeting icon blossomed on the map.

  “There’s your new first objective,” Gryzlov said. He smiled, seeing Kurakin’s face suddenly pale. Devilish amusement danced in his eyes. “The Americans are busy making themselves look like idiots with this interminable political season of theirs. So why shouldn’t we help make sure their presidential election campaign starts off with a bang, eh?”

  Fifteen

  AIR FORCE ONE, BARKSDALE AIR FORCE BASE, LOUISIANA

  SEVERAL DAYS LATER

  “We’re on final approach to Barksdale, Madam President,” one of Stacy Anne Barbeau’s uniformed military aides reported.

  With a big, friendly smile, she looked up. “Why, thank you, Tommy. I appreciate the heads-up. I must have been lost in my reading.”

  Ostentatiously, she closed the thick briefing book she’d been pretending to study since flying out from Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington, D.C., more than two hours ago. Why the Pentagon brass thought she could possibly be interested in an assembly of boring background papers about the different units stationed at Barksdale was a mystery. Irritating though it was, there were certain niceties to be observed in her sometimes tense relationship with the U.S. military. Despite the big-ticket weapons projects and pay increases she’d rammed through Congress, too many officers and enlisted personnel disliked her administration and were hoping that Farrell would beat her in November.

  The big 747-8, designated a VC-25B in its military configuration, vibrated slightly as its landing gear came down and locked.

  Barbeau leaned over in her luxurious big leather seat to look out the armored window. They were coming in low over the lush green woods and bayous of northwestern Louisiana. Off to the wes
t, she could see the muddy brown waters of the Red River snaking back and forth between Shreveport and Bossier City.

  Luke Cohen poked his head in through the open door to her onboard office. “We’re all set. The press plane landed an hour ago. And our advance team has the good little boys and girls of the media safely corralled in a roped-off area. They’ve got great camera angles for your arrival, review of the troops, and speech—but they’re set up just a little too far away for any awkward candid interviews with people on the base.”

  “Are any of them bitching about that?”

  Her White House chief of staff shrugged. “A couple.” He gave her a sly grin. “But our guys blamed it on the Air Force. The imperatives of national security, you know.”

  “Nice job,” Barbeau said, pleased. The fact that Barksdale itself was closed to civilians was one of the pluses in what her staff was billing as an official inspection of “renewed American airpower” by the nation’s commander in chief. The press could either parrot back the story she handed them on a platter . . . or nothing. “How’s the weather shaping up?”

  “It’s hot and muggy as hell,” Cohen said. “But the most recent forecast says it won’t rain until much later, long after we’re gone.”

  She nodded. Louisiana was her home state and oppressive temperatures and humidity were typical for this time of year. Fortunately, the same Botox injections that smoothed out her wrinkles and made her look years younger than her real age also kept her from sweating. That was just one more secret weapon in her political arsenal. While everyone around her looked about ready to melt, she would come across as cool, clean, and perfectly composed.

  Air Force One touched down with barely a jolt and decelerated in a roar of reversed engines and brakes, slowing fast as it rolled down the air base’s nearly twelve-thousand-foot-long runway. Cohen gripped the edge of the doorframe and rode easily with the motion.

  Barbeau turned back to the window. Outside, she could see thousands of airmen and officers lined up at parade rest in neat ranks. Their blue dress uniforms made a nice contrast with the reddish-brown earth tones of the wide concrete apron. Twenty-four multirole stealth fighters of the U.S. Air Force’s first operational F-35 Lightning II squadron were parked behind them. Next to the fighters were a half-dozen mammoth, dark gray B-52H Stratofortress strategic bombers, along with two swept-wing XB-1F Excaliburs.

  She hid a frown. Those two Excaliburs, and the others deployed elsewhere, were old B-1B Lancers originally upgraded by Sky Masters as part of one of Patrick McLanahan’s nutty private military schemes. Sure, she’d had the Air Force seize the XB-1F bombers for its own use as soon as she took office. Nevertheless, seeing them here was an unwelcome reminder that the U.S. armed forces were still too dependent on weapons and aircraft authorized by her old political rivals.

  For nearly four years, Barbeau’s administration had blocked Sky Masters from landing new Pentagon contracts, but the company limped along anyway—surviving on sales to the domestic market, foreign countries, and Martindale’s Scion mercenaries. She gritted her teeth. It was high time that she shoved Sky Masters and its backers into the dustbin of aviation history. And with luck, today’s big show would help make that happen by unveiling America’s newest and most advanced long-range stealth bomber.

  “Where’s our B-21 Raider prototype?” she asked, still watching out the window. There, at the far end of the apron, she saw a light gray C-17 Globemaster III transport waiting off to the side. That plane had flown in ahead of Air Force One, ferrying the black SUVs and limousines that made up her presidential motorcade. There were no plans for her to drive anywhere on this trip, but the Secret Service always insisted on covering all possible bases.

  “Orbiting a few miles away, out of sight,” Cohen told her. “I confirmed that with our liaison to the contractor a couple of minutes ago.”

  “And the flight crew knows what to do?”

  The New Yorker nodded. “As soon as we’re parked and the Secret Service has cleared you to deplane, they’ll start their approach. Everything’s timed so that shiny new B-21 Raider will touch down just as you’re being greeted by the base commander and his staff.” He winked at her. “Those pictures are going to lead every newscast tonight, Madam President. They’ll be on the front page of every newspaper tomorrow morning. Hell, they’ll go viral on the Internet as soon as we upload them to the White House website and reporters post their own pics on social media.”

  Stacy Anne Barbeau smiled broadly. This taxpayer-funded kickoff for her presidential reelection campaign would be a day to remember.

  INSIDE THE BASE PERIMETER

  THAT SAME TIME

  Accompanied by the soft whine of servos and actuators, a sleek, deadly-looking gray machine stalked through the woods and bayous east of Barksdale’s runway. Shadows cast by magnolias, oak trees, and tall slash pines flowed across its elongated torso, eyeless spherical head, and thin, agile arms and legs. Despite the bulky weapons packs strapped to it, the robot moved with remarkable speed and stealth.

  Quietly, it came to a place where the trees grew closer together. Ahead, the ground sloped down very slightly into a tangle of ferns and thickets of switch cane. Knobby, thick-trunked bald cypresses rose out of a ribbon of stagnant, tea-colored water.

  Suddenly the robot stopped moving. It crouched lower, nestling down among the undergrowth. Its antenna-studded head swiveled rapidly from side to side.

  Inside the cockpit, KVM senior pilot Oleg Imrekov studied his displays. He was picking up a bright green thermal signature, man-sized and -shaped, a little over one hundred meters ahead—on the other side of this narrow stretch of bayou. Using a low-light visual sensor slaved to his robot’s thermal imager, he zoomed in on the same spot.

  He saw a young American soldier in camouflage fatigues standing next to a small, four-wheel all-terrain vehicle. Through a pair of binoculars, the soldier was peering up at a bird’s nest in the branches of a tall pine tree farther down the bayou. By the twin stripes on his sleeve, he was an airman first class, and a unit patch identified him as a member of the 2nd Security Forces Squadron. Apart from a holstered 9mm pistol, the American was unarmed.

  Imrekov opened a secure radio link. “Prividenye Lead, this is Two.”

  Colonel Baryshev replied immediately. His own combat robot was moving through the woods about five hundred meters north of this position. “Specter Lead to Specter Two. Go ahead.”

  “I’ve encountered an American airman to my front. He hasn’t seen me yet, but there is no way I can go around him without being spotted.”

  “Is this man a sentry or a scout?” Baryshev asked, sounding concerned, and rightly so. Nothing in Kirill Aristov’s reconnaissance reports had suggested they might run into enemy resistance along this concealed line of approach. If the Americans had scouts or observation posts deployed this far out from the runway, their assault could be easily compromised. It was essential that all six Russian KVMs reach the target without being detected.

  “Neither,” Imrekov said. “The American seems to be bird-watching. He may be one of their game wardens.”

  He heard the colonel bite down on a curse. Barksdale Air Force Base sprawled over more than twenty-two thousand acres. Some of that land was set aside as protected nature preserves. Monitoring the endangered plant and animal species on this huge base was the job of a very small force of airmen assigned as game wardens. And that made this sudden, unexpected meeting sheer bad luck.

  “Can you silence the American before he raises an alarm?”

  “I think so,” Imrekov replied calmly.

  “Then do it.”

  Obeying the commands he relayed through his neural link, Imrekov’s KVM leaped to its feet and charged forward into the bayou, accelerating up with every long-legged stride. Stagnant, foul-smelling water splashed high across the robot’s spindly legs.

  Startled by the sudden explosion of noise, the young American airman spun toward the bayou. He dropped his binoculars, fumbling for
the pistol holstered at his side. His eyes widened. “What the hell—”

  Imrekov’s machine burst out of the swamp in a spray of mud and torn vegetation. Before the airman could get a firm grip on his Beretta M9 pistol, the Russian KVM pilot leaned forward and batted him aside with one of the robot’s large metal hands. With a muffled cry, the American went tumbling head over heels in a spray of blood and broken bone. He landed facedown in a clump of ferns and collapsed in an unmoving heap, clearly dead.

  “Situation resolved satisfactorily,” Imrekov radioed. “Specter Two is proceeding to target at best possible speed.”

  OVER SOUTHERN ARKANSAS

  THAT SAME TIME

  Regan Air Freight Flight 175 flew southeast at twenty-five thousand feet through blue skies marked by wisps of high, thin white cloud. According to its flight manifest, the 737-200F cargo jet was ferrying wind turbine components from Indianapolis to Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport. But instead of turbine blades and nacelles, sixteen Kh-35UE cruise missiles filled its cargo compartment, waiting silently on four track-mounted rotary launchers.

  “Regan One-Seven-Five, Memphis Center,” an air traffic controller said in Colonel Yuri Annenkov’s headset, “contact Fort Worth Center on one-three-four-point-four-seven-five. Have a good day.” They were leaving the airspace supervised by the FAA’s Memphis Air Traffic Control Center and entering that monitored by its Fort Worth counterpart.

  Annenkov clicked his mike. “One-three-four-point-four-seven-five for Regan One-Seven-Five. Thank you, Memphis.” He waited while his copilot, Major Konstantin Uspensky, changed radio frequencies as directed. Then he keyed his mike again. “Fort Worth Center, Regan One-Seven-Five, level two-five-zero.”

  The voice of a new controller responded immediately, acknowledging that they were in his area of responsibility and that he had them on his radar screen. “Regan One-Seven-Five, roger.”