“Listen to me. We wouldn’t have made it in here if it weren’t for you. Right now my people are trying to disarm a ten-kiloton suitcase nuke. If they fail, we’re all going to die anyway. But I wanted you to know that what you did . . .” His voice cracked. “I just wanted you to know. Thank you.”
Rakken managed to nod ever so slightly. He squeezed the man’s hand again, just as Captain Welch knelt down beside him. “Sergeant, the chaplain’s on his way. Hang in there for me. You got no permission to die.”
Rakken wasn’t one to disobey an order, but the intense cold creeping into his chest would not cease. He closed his eyes. The mission had been accomplished. His work here was finished.
Suddenly, all the lights snapped on in the room, causing him to open his eyes.
Was he leaving his body now? Or was he beginning to hallucinate?
“They’ve restored power to the cell network as well,” someone shouted. “They might be trying to trigger the device that way now!”
“Get someone to shut that power down. And move it!”
Rakken wanted to sit up, see what was going on. He turned his head slightly, where the civilians were gathered around something on the floor, the nuke maybe, all working under intense, battery-operated lights.
And then, quite suddenly, the world grew dark around the edges, and he closed his eyes.
THIRTY-NINE
Viktoria Antsyforov and Green Vox were in the tiny town of Banff, just off the Trans-Canada Highway as it traversed the Banff National Park, seventy-eight miles west of Calgary. They had chosen the location to be upwind from nuclear fallout once the detonations were made.
They had checked in to The Fairmont Banff Springs, a lavish getaway nestled in the Canadian Rockies. The Fairmont was styled after a Scottish baronial castle, with ornate spires and castle-like walls. Antsyforov’s time there had made her feel very much like royalty. But that time had come to an end.
Green Vox—who went by so many aliases that even Antsyforov didn’t know his real name—was downstairs, checking on their ride out to the heliport.
Their sources in Edmonton and Calgary had said that the JSF and Euros had located both bombs and were attempting to dismantle them. And while she had wanted to wait the full forty-eight hours to ensure as many military casualties as possible, the JSF and Euros had moved more swiftly than she’d anticipated—meaning that Kapalkin must have tipped his hand to the Americans.
Antsyforov had already tried trigging the nukes via her Iridium satellite phone, but she couldn’t believe it: the entire network was down. Impossible!
She had told her sources to pass on word to get the conventional cell phone network up and running.
Vox returned to the room. “They’re waiting for us. Is it done?”
“The entire Iridium network is down. I have to try my cell.”
“No power.”
“They’re taking care of that.”
“And if they don’t?”
“They already have,” she said, studying her cell phone. “My call to Calgary is going through right now.” Once she heard the familiar hum, she need only dial two numbers: 5 9.
Confirmation that the weapon was armed to detonate in twenty seconds would come as three beeps.
But the humming continued.
She hit the numbers again. And again.
She cursed.
“I told you this would happen,” Vox cried.
“No!”
“Yes! They’ve already dismantled the nuke because you let your ego get in the way. You didn’t need to contact Kapalkin and Izotov.”
“After all those years, I deserved that much,” she said through her teeth.
“Well, now what? Do you really believe your brother can come through for us?”
“He will.”
“Are you ever going to tell me who he is? What the plan is now? We’re in this together.”
She cocked a well-tweezed brow. “We all have secrets.”
Vox grabbed her by the throat, shoved her up against the wall. “You stupid . . .”
He didn’t finish. Instead, he came in for a violent kiss, and she offered no resistance.
When he finally pulled back, his voice lowered to warning depths. “Tell me what’s happening.”
“If you only knew . . .”
“Tell me, otherwise—”
“What?” She glared at him. “We just made love. Now you’re threatening me?”
“You have no idea how much money is at stake.”
She snorted. “Oh, yes I do. This will happen—one way or the other.”
“We’re not leaving until you talk.”
“All right. You want to know it all, huh? It doesn’t matter anymore. Listen closely. My brother is commander of the Romanov. He will launch a salvo of Bulava missiles. They’ll fly low, and the JSF’s missile shield can’t stop them. It’ll destroy a series of decoys while the live missiles reach their targets in Alberta.”
“This has never been tried before.”
“Until now.”
“How did you manage this?”
“Very carefully.”
“And you’re so very sure.”
“I am.”
“And you don’t care about how many innocent lives will be lost if you’re right.”
She smiled darkly. “I am Snegurochka. What did you expect?” She shoved him away, drew the silenced pistol tucked into her pants.
“Viktoria, what are you doing?”
“Did you really think I was working with you?”
His mouth fell open. “You can’t be serious.”
She grinned and extended her arm.
Vox’s face filled with hatred. “Go ahead, kill me. Green Vox will return. He always does.”
She shot him between the eyes. He dropped hard to the floor.
“Yes,” she said, staring down at his body. “You always come back—and always as a man. What a pity.”
After ducking down the next side street, Sergeant Nathan Vatz sent two of his operators across the street, where they kept low in a doorway, while the team’s senior communications sergeant paired up with him.
They set up behind two parked cars, both so beat up that it was clear why their owners had abandoned them, and waited for the pursuing Spetsnaz troops to round the corner.
Five seconds. Ten. Twenty. They didn’t come.
Vatz immediately assumed they had doubled back in an attempt to catch them from behind. Now he had two choices, neither good: he could avoid the ambush and head back to the truck—but the air support no doubt had moved on. Or they could rush ahead, try to catch the enemy by surprise, ambush the ambushers.
The decision was obvious.
He ordered the group to move out, to keep moving forward. They kept tight to the walls, were twenty yards from the corner when the Russians burst into view, just as he’d expected. All six of them.
Vatz jammed down his trigger, spraying the soldiers, as did his men.
The Russians fell back around the corner, but one spun and cut loose a last burst.
Vatz was about to order his men to drive on, but a second group of troops, four in all, appeared behind them and opened up, driving Vatz and his partner into the next doorway.
Across the street, one of Vatz’s operators had taken a round in his thigh. He lay there clutching the wound, a dark stain growing on the sidewalk.
They were now cut off, with the Spetsnaz troops at both ends of the street.
Vatz had been taught that it was moments like this that separated the good team sergeants from the great ones. Despite all the stress and heightened senses, you needed to clear your head, analyze the situation, and use cunning, speed, and maneuverability to your advantage.
Calling for help was a good idea, too.
He switched to the team’s channel. Maybe Murphy would allow him to get through. “Black Bear, this is Bali, over.”
“Go ahead, Bali.”
He sighed over the small miracle. “Check the
Blue Force Tracker. I’m pinned down here with one wounded, over.”
“Roger that. Cross Com’s back up now. Tenth’s got people on the ground. I’ll send a squad or two your way, over.”
“That would be nice,” Vatz answered matter-of-factly. “Misery loves company. Bali, out.” He turned to his commo guy. “We can’t stay here.”
“But they have us cut off.”
“Which is why we can’t stay here.” He pointed over at his two men across the street. “Cover them. I saw a staircase on one building. I’m going to check it out.”
“You’re going alone?”
Vatz bit back a curse. “Cover them. Do it.”
As Vatz jogged up the street, he realized his team-mate wasn’t questioning orders but genuinely concerned about his safety.
Well, Vatz was also genuinely concerned about his safety, and it puzzled him why he wasn’t drawing any fire.
Racing to the end of the building, which appeared to be some kind of factory or warehouse, he turned left, found the metal staircase leading up to some heavy machinery on the roof.
He slipped onto the stairs, controlled his breathing, and took it one step at a time.
At the top, he spotted the four Russian soldiers that had been behind them, skulking along the edge, preparing to move along the rooftop to ambush his men below.
One poorly placed step would give him away. He eased off the stairs and onto the ice-covered roof, his boots barely finding traction. He shifted over to a tall aluminum venting system, crouched down, and raised his rifle, just as footfalls rumbled on the staircase and the sounds of the battle grew louder.
“Captain, I’m picking up flow noise from Sierra One on narrowband, bearing three-three-nine,” said the Florida’s sonar operator.
Andreas’s breath grew shallow with excitement. “Where’s the thermal layer?”
“Two hundred feet, sir.”
“We couldn’t pick up his flow noises if he wasn’t below the layer with us.”
“Concur, Captain.”
Andreas called out to the officer of the deck. “Come right to three-three-nine, slow to one third, make your depth sixteen hundred feet.”
He waited until the OOD repeated and executed his order, then switched his attention back to sonar. “What’s your best guess on that flow noise source?”
“I think it’s flow-induced resonance, Captain. That snap shot might’ve unlatched a stowage bin outside on his hull. It sounds like blowing into an empty Coke bottle. He has to hear it himself. I’m surprised he hasn’t slowed down to make it go away.”
Andreas squinted and thought aloud: “He knows we’re still alive, but he’s not sure of our status or where we are, so he’s risking some noise to put distance between himself and our contact point. Then he’ll slow to a crawl and acoustically vanish.”
“I agree, Captain.”
“Stay on him, Sonar. That’s two mistakes he’s made.”
“Two, sir?”
“Yeah, taking a cheap panic shot at us during our emergency was his first. On the other hand, we’d most likely have missed each other if we hadn’t had that jam.”
Andreas had to assume that the Romanov would behave like the SSBN it was and try to skulk away and hide—
Because a Joint Strike Force nuclear attack sub was a Russian SSBN crew’s worst nightmare.
Major Alice Dennison’s monitor showed streaming video from the High Level Bridge in Edmonton, just as Spetsnaz mechanized forces were making their way over it—
And just as the Tomahawks launched from the Florida made impact.
As explosions flashed in a string of lights festooning the bridge’s lines, Dennison nodded. A perfect strike.
Sure, the nuke there had already been deactivated, but the Euros had reported that the Russian ground force moving in was much larger than initial intel had indicated, and cutting off their main avenue of approach would now allow the Euros to better engage and delay them, until more follow-on forces arrived, or until the Russians decided to pull out.
The bridge broke apart in three distinct pieces and dropped to the river, creating tremendous waves and sending fountains high into the night sky.
And along with the bridge came the Russian vehicles, tumbling end over end, crashing into the pieces of bridge before they sank or simply splashing hard into the water.
At least a dozen more vehicles had been moving so swiftly that they couldn’t stop, and like elephants herded to a cliff, they plunged over the side.
She took a long pull on her coffee cup, leaned back in her chair, and continued to watch as, in another set of windows, images came in from Calgary Tower, where wounded or killed infantrymen were being evaced away.
She’d spoken to one of the company commanders there, a man named Welch, who’d said one of his rifle squad leaders had saved the entire NEST team by throwing himself on a fragmentation grenade. Stories of men doing this in order to save their brothers in arms were common during times of war.
But that kind of bravery was not.
That solder’s name was Sergeant Marc Rakken, and Dennison would make sure that he received the full recognition he deserved.
A call flashed on her screen. “Yes, General Kennedy. What can I do for you?”
FORTY
“Captain, we’ve got a passive range solution of twenty-six thousand yards and a computed course and speed of three-two-zero, fifteen knots, for the target,” reported the Florida’s attack coordinator.
“Sonar’s lost contact with Sierra One, Captain,” said the operator. “He’s definitely slowed down.”
Commander Jonathan Andreas nodded. “Weps, set the unit in tube one on low speed, passive search, transit depth fifteen hundred feet. Set the unit in tube four on low speed, passive search, transit depth one thousand feet.”
While the Navy called them units, Andreas still thought of the Mark 48s as torpedoes and would refer to them as such when in the company of nonmilitary friends and family.
However, it hardly mattered what they were called when one was bearing down on you.
The Russians would soon testify to that.
Andreas continued: “Gentlemen, I want to sit back here in his baffles and straddle him with our 48s. Let both units achieve ordered depth during their run-to-enable. With units one and four walking point, we’ll follow behind, right down to fourteen thousand yards if he doesn’t hear us. Now here’s the plan . . .” Andreas paused, solidifying the tactical picture in his mind before voicing it. “I’m going to send unit four out onto his port quarter, maybe just abaft his beam, turn it toward him, then switch it to high speed, active mode. If he thinks he’s under attack from the west, he’ll turn east to evade and concentrate his snap shots and countermeasures toward the west—not at us. Meanwhile, unit one will be out on his starboard side, waiting. He’ll never know what hit him.”
The weapons officer flashed a knowing grin. “Reminds me of growing up on the sheep ranch. We had two smart border collies. One would outflank the flock, bark, and charge, then turn the flock back toward his buddy.”
“Exactly,” said Andreas. “Now you’ve got the bubble, Weps. We American cowboys and sheepherders will show these Russians how it’s done.”
“Yes, sir!”
Sergeant Nathan Vatz wasn’t sure who was coming up the stairs behind him, but he needed to make his move. He charged across the roof, coming up to the rearmost Spetsnaz troop making his way along the edge.
Vatz covered the troop’s mouth with one hand while the Caracara knife in his other hand tore through the Russian’s neck and into his spinal cord. This soldier died as quickly as that one had back in Moscow. As he went down, Vatz folded up his knife, slung around his rifle, and jogged off.
The other three still hadn’t noticed him. It was pitch-black up there on the roof, no power in the entire town now, and the temperature was dropping rapidly. His nose was runny and frozen, his lips growing more chapped.
He rushed up to the next guy, the drumming
of helicopter rotors all over the sky now, along with the whooshing of jet engines, sporadic gunfire, and near-and-far explosions. The din fully concealed his thumping boots.
Vatz was about to dispatch the next guy with his blade when the trooper turned around, and gaped at Vatz. All Vatz could do was throw himself forward, knocking the Russian to the rooftop.
They slid across the ice, rolled, still clutching each other, then Vatz forced the man back while driving his knife into the trooper’s neck.
The guy let out a scream.
The last two Russians came charging back, rifles coming to bear.
Maybe thirty feet away, they grew more distinct, two unmasked men in their late thirties or early forties loaded down with gear but shifting as agilely as barechested jungle fighters. These two were seasoned Spetsnaz troops.
Vatz grabbed the bleeding Russian beneath him and rolled to his left, using the troop as a shield—
As the others opened fire, riddling their squad mate with rounds, some thudding off his helmet and armor, others burrowing into his legs and neck. Vatz flinched hard, knowing it would take only one lucky round to finish him. He lay there a moment, unmoving, playing dead, as they ceased fire and came closer.
While Vatz couldn’t see them, he reached out with every other sense, and just as those boots sounded close enough, he threw off the body and came up with his rifle.
They were ten feet away, firing as he did, the rounds striking his chest hard, the armor protecting him, the impacts breath-robbing.
Both Russians dropped to the roof, clutching their wounds and firing one-handed into the air.
Unsure if he’d been hit in the arms or legs, Vatz pushed himself up, checked himself, then turned toward the other side of the roof, where a half dozen silhouettes appeared:
More troops. Running toward him—
While a chopper swooped in behind them, its powerful searchlight bathing the Russians in its harsh glow.
Vatz squinted while beginning to move back. Was that an enemy helo or not?
He got a better look and shouted, “Yeah!”
Trailing the troops was, in fact, a JSF Black Hawk helicopter, its door gunners delivering the .50 caliber early bird special to the Russians below.