for his pistol, and ventured close enough to him to kick his hand away.
Rogov crouched down in the snow, still well out of reach of the
Spetsnaz, and aimed the pistol at the man’s temple. “You don’t understand
everything–not at all,” he said softly, pitching his voice low. He
glanced around him briefly, wondering if the other men had heard the shot.
Probably not with the silencer still affixed, although there was no telling
how long it would be effective in this climate. Even now, he suspected,
the cold had frozen the extended cylinder permanently to the barrel.
“They will kill you for this,” the Spetsnaz managed to gasp. “Kill
you.”
Rogov smiled. “Did you really believe that was our mission?” he
asked. Rogov shook his head. “And I was worried about you,” he admitted.
He could see the Spetsnaz commander’s face turning pale as blood
flowed away from the brain, struggling to replace the frozen, pulsing mass
in the man’s midsection. “Since you’re dead, I’ll tell you,” Rogov said.
“In memory of your bravery, however foolhardy. There are no missiles on
the way, Comrade Spetsnaz. None at all. There never have been, there
never will be. Do you really think that we would be so foolish as to
provoke an international incident by planting our own guns and missiles on
American soil?” He shook his head again, wondering about the inflexible
military mentality that made such lies plausible to men like this. “No, it
is a much deeper plan than that,” he finished.
The Spetsnaz commander gave one final gasp, and then grew still.
Within moments, Rogov could see ice starting to rim the delicate tissues
exposed to the elements.
Now what? he wondered. This possibility had been discussed, that he
would have to eliminate one or more of the Spetsnaz commandos. It had
seemed a far easier–and safer–plan back in Russia, but now the
difficulties seemed to have increased logarithmically. If it had been
anyone except the commander, he thought, and shook his head again. No,
this is the way it would have to be. Tension between the men had already
been running too high. With the commander eliminated, there was at least a
fifty-fifty chance the rest of the men would obey him unquestioningly,
yielding with that peculiarly Slavic resignation to authority. And perhaps
this would increase his stature within the group.
He debated for a moment trying to hide the body, and then decided
against it. The Spetsnaz would, he was certain, send out patrols to try to
locate the missing commando. Better that they know where it was now, and
that Rogov admitted responsibility.
He stood and watched the speck that was the P-3 Orion dwindle in the
distance. Now it was time for the next phase of the plan to unfold. He
trudged down the slope to the cavern to await his new subordinates.
1640 Local
Pathfinder 731
“Jesus, did you see that?” Eel yelped.
“You betcha.” The pilot’s voice was grim, “And I don’t care what
Intelligence says, there damn well is somebody down there. Radio
emissions, ghost contacts–hell, it’s entirely different when somebody
starts shooting missiles at YOU.”
“Better lucky than good,” Eel said automatically. He stared back aft
at the frozen landscape fading in the distance behind them.
Had they been lucky? one part of his mind wondered. They had to
be–what else could explain the missile impacting with the ground instead
of clawing up the ass of the Orion? A misfire, perhaps? Or something
wrong with the guidance system on the Stinger? He shook his head,
wondering at the possibilities. The Stinger was among the most simple
weapons to operate, a feature that made it popular with every insurgent
nation around the world. Simple, easily transportable, and almost
unbearably deadly. It had been the advent of Stinger missiles on the
ground in Afghanistan that had driven back the potent Soviet air force, and
forced the Russians to a virtual defeat there.
As the adrenaline started to fade away, he felt his hands quiver. One
Stinger missile versus one P-3 Orion aircraft–no contest, he decided. A
Stinger would do fatal damage to the aircraft too quickly, and the
lumbering Orion had too few tricks up its sleeves to evade it. The flares