Newmeyer grinned. “We all did the fourteen-mile timed run in under a hundred and ten minutes, sir.”
“Not in snow with full gear you didn’t-”
“We should be okay,” Newmeyer said.
“We also need to leave time to throw snow on the tree, so it looks like it’s been there a while,” Squires said. “And me ‘n’ Grey have another little job to do.”
The Lieutenant Colonel looked ahead. In five minutes, they could reach a concave area of granite some three hundred yards ahead, one that would protect them from the blast-assuming the concussion didn’t bring the cliff down on them. But Grey was experienced enough, and the explosives were small enough, that that wasn’t likely to happen. That would still leave enough time for one of them to come back and clear away any traces of their tracks in the snow: it had to look as though the tree had cracked and come down by itself.
Grey rose when he was finished, and Squires squatted as Newmeyer lit the fuse.
“Let’s go!” Squires said.
The Lieutenant Colonel helped Newmeyer up and the three men ran toward their little sanctuary, arriving with a minute to spare. They were still catching their breath when the sharp report of the low-explosive blast tore through the night, followed by the brittle cracking of the tree trunk and a dull thud as it hit the train tracks.
FIFTY-FOUR
Tuesday, 11:08 P.M., Hokkaido
The two-crewmen “glass cockpit” was low, flat, and dark behind a narrow, curved windshield. Three of the six flat color screens in the cockpit formed a single tactical panorama, while an extra-wide HUD-heads-up display-provided flight and target information that expanded upon the data contained on displays mounted inside the visor of the pilot’s helmet. There were no dedicated gauges. The displays generated all of the information the pilot required, including input from the sophisticated sensors mounted to the exterior.
Behind the cockpit was a matte-black fuselage sixtyfive feet, five inches long. There were no sharp angles on the flat-bellied craft, and the NOTAR tail systemno tail rotorand advanced bearingless main rotor made the Mosquito virtually silent in flight. Ducted air forced, under pressure, through gill-like sections in the rear fuselage provided the craft with its anti-torque forces; a rotating directional control thruster on the tail boom enabled the pilot to steer. Already relatively lightweight because of the absence of driveshafts and gearboxes, the craft had been stripped of all extraneous gear, including armaments, which cut the aircraft’s empty weight from nine thousand to just six thousand,
five hundred pounds. With an extra tank of fuel carried outside and burned off first-so the bladder could be jettisoned over the sea and recovered-and coming home from a mission fifteen hundred pounds heavier than it went in, the Mosquito had a range of seven hundred miles.
It was a breed of flying machine the press and lay public called “Stealth,” but which the officers of the Mosquito program at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base preferred to call “low-observable.” The point of such aircraft was not that they couldn’t be seen. Enough radar energy directed at the F- I 17A or the B-2A or the Mosquito would enable an enemy to see it. However, there was hardly a weapons system in the world that could track and lock onto such an aircraft, and that was its advantage.
None of the low-observable aircraft currently in service would have been able to execute the mission at hand, which was why the Mosquito program had been inaugurated in 1991. Only a helicopter could fly in low over mountainous terrain at night, deposit or extract a team, turn around and get out again-and only a low-observable could hope to do that in the carefully monitored and cluttered skies of Russia.
Flying at two hundred miles an hour, the Mosquito would reach its target at just before midnight, local time. If the helicopter took more than eight minutes to complete its pickup in Khabarovsk, it wouldn’t have enough fuel to reach the carrier that would be waiting for it in the Sea of Japan. But having run through every aspect of the mission on the cockpit computer simulator, pilot Steve Kahrs and copilot Anthony lovino were confident in the prototype, and anxious for it to earn its wings. If the special forces team did their job, this would send them back to Wright-Patterson heroes and, more important, would deliver yet another body blow to the once proud Russian military.
FIFTY-FIVE
Tuesday, 3:25 P.m., St. Petersburg
“General Orlov,” Major Levski said, “I’ve had rather distressing news.”
Only the Major’s voice came in over the headphones plugged into the computer in Orlov’s office. The naval base on the outskirts of the city was not yet equipped with video capabilities; nor, with the budget cuts in the military, was it ever likely to be.
“What is it, Major?” Orlov asked. He was tired, and his voice sounded it.
“Sir, General Mavik ordered me to recall the Molot team.”
“When?”
“I’ve just gotten off the phone with him,” said Levski. “Sir, I’m sorry but I must carry out-”
“I understand,” Orlov interrupted. He took a sip of black coffee. “Be sure to thank Lieutenant Starik and his team for me.”
“Yes, sir, I will,” Levski said. “You understand, General, that whatever is happening, you’re not alone. I’m with you. So is Molot.”
Orlov’s mouth perked at the edges. “Thank you, Major.”
“I don’t pretend to know what’s going on,” Levski continued. “There are all these rumors of an impending coup, of black marketeers being behind this. All I know is that I once tried to pull a vintage Kalinin K-4 out of a nosedive, sit. It had a bear of an engine-a BMW IV, very stubborn. ”
“I know the plane,” Orlov said.
“I remember thinking as I burst through the clouds, looking straight down, ‘This is a vintage beauty, and I’ve no right to give up on her, however temperamental she gets.’ It wasn’t just a duty, it was an honor. Instead of bailing out, I wrestled her to the ground. It wasn’t pretty, but we both made it. And then I personally-personally-took that bastard Bavarian mechanism apart and fixed it.”
“She flew?”
“Like a young sparrow,” Levski said.
Orlov knew he was tired because that Young Boy’s Digest story touched him. “Thank you, Major. I’ll let you know when I get my hands on the damn engine cowl.”
Orlov hung up and drained his coffee cup. It was nice to know he had an ally, other than his devoted assistant, Nina, who was due back at four. And then there was his wife. She was with him always, of course, but like the dragon slayer who carried his lady’s colors into battle, he still rode out alone. And at this moment the sense of isolation was stronger than any he’d experienced, even in the bleakness of outer space.
Using the keyboard, he switched back to the channel the militia used to monitor their field forces.
“. . . want to be left alone,” a female voice was saying in perfect Russian.
“Leave a surgical assault force free in Russia?” Rossky laughed. He was obviously communicating with his quarry on his cellular telephone, patched together either through the Operations Center or the local police station.
“We’re not an assault force,” said the woman.
“You were seen entering the Presidential Palace with Major Pentti Aho-”
“He arranged our transportation. We came to try and find out who killed a British businessman-”
“The official report and remains were turned over to the British Embassy,” said Rossky.
“Cremated remains,” said the woman. “The British don’t accept that he died of a heart attack.”
“And we don’t accept that he was a businessmanl” said Rossky. “You have another nine minutes to turn yourselves in or join your dead friend. It’s that simple.”
“Nothing is ever that simple,” said Orlov.
Only the faint crackle of static filled the line for what seemed like a very long time.
“To whom am I speaking?” the woman said.
“To the highest-ranking military officer in St. Petersburg,” said Orlov, more for Rossky’s sake than the woman’s. “Now who are you? And spare us the cover. We know how you came here and from where.”
“Fair enough,” said the woman. “We’re COMINT officers who work with Defense Minister Niskanen in Helsinki.”
“You are not!” Rossky bellowed. “Niskanen wouldn’t risk his resources to disinter a corpse!”
“D16 could not agree on a course of action,” the woman explained, “so they consulted the CIA and the Defense Minister. They agreed that it would be less provocative for myself and my colleague to come in and try and find out why he was killed-and, once that was accomplished, to try and arrange a dialogue to avoid retaliation. ”
“Cutouts?” Rossky sneered. “You would have taken a direct flight with cobbled passports, gotten in quickly to make your case. You came by midget submarine because you didn’t want to be seen at the airport. You’re lying!”