Brown, Dale - Patrick McLanahan 09 (65 page)

 
          
“Forget
it, General. . Roman,” Luger said. “I’m the wacko in this group, remember.”

 
          
He
heard the Ukrainian chuckle, then he had to move the receiver away from his ear
to avoid the general’s big, booming laugh. “You Americans, you surprise me,” he
said. “You are in a mental hospital, and you make jokes.”

 
          
“General,
you’ve got to find out what happened out there, find out why the Turks are
leaving,” Luger said.

 
          
“Things
are exploding in the Balkans....”

 
          
“I
heard that,” Luger said. “
Albania
declared war on
Macedonia
. Some kind of border skirmish set them
off.”

 
          
“But
there’s more than that. Russian and German peacekeepers are swarming into
Kosovo
,
Macedonia
, and
Albania
. KFOR has all but disbanded. The British
and French are still in Kosovo, but the other major powers are sweeping south.
NATO seems to be handing the fate of the Balkans over to
Russia
and
Germany
.”

 
          
“All
this sounds too staged,” Luger said. “Just like that attack on Kukes. A small
hot spot that quickly spreads into a major wildfire, and the Russians and the
Germans ready and eager on such short notice to push right in.”

 
          
“You
think there is a puppetmaster at work here? A Russian puppetmaster, to be
exact?”

 
          
“A
Russian puppetmaster with a stealth fighter-bomber,” Luger said. “I’ll lay odds
that the Russian stealth fighter has struck again. The Russian—” Luger froze,
his words jamming in his throat until all he could exclaim was “Oh, my God...

           
“What is it, David?”

 
          
“Roman,
the spy that was rescued in
Russia
was working at a facility at Zhukovsky Air
Base run by the Metyor Aerospace firm.”

 
          
“So
you said.”

 
          
“Don’t
you get it, Roman? Don't you remember what Metyor used to be?”

 
          
“I
do not know this. Who—?” Then he stopped, and Luger heard a sharp intake of air
even over the scrambled line. “Good God . . . you mean,
Fisikous? Metyor
is
Fisikous?
Are you telling me... ?”

 
          
“The
stealth fighter that launched from Zhukovsky, the one suspected of attacking
Kukes—it’s the Fisikous-179,” Luger shouted. “It has to be! There’s no other
stealth fighter-bomber that can fly those missions in all of
Europe
!”

 
          
“But
the stealth aircraft were destroyed in that attack on Fisikous.”

 
          
“They
weren’t destroyed. Roman. I took the Fi-170
Tuman!
Me and General
McLanahan.”

 
          
“Neprada!
”

           
“It’s true. He was leading a rescue
mission, him and Colonel Briggs, when the CIA discovered I was at Fisikous. But
Russia
was on its way to destroying
Lithuania
and rebuilding the
Soviet Union
, and we had to act. We took the
Fisikous-170 and flew it out of there. We flew it to
Scotland
and dismantled it. But the
United States
never set out to destroy the facility—they
were looking for
me.
The facility itself was almost untouched.”

 
          
“Incredible
... unbelievable!” Smoliy breathed. “So it must be the second model, the
Fisikous-179.”

 
          
“We
took the curled-wing flying prototype model, so it must be the
forward-swept-wing model,” Luger said. “We started working on an aircraft that
had just as great an air-to-air capability as it did an air-to-ground bombing
capability. We hadn’t even rolled it out yet—it was still years from its first
flight.”

 
          
“Maybe
whoever bought Fisikous finished the Fi-179 and is now flying it,” Smoliy
surmised.

 
          
“Fursenko,”
Luger said. “Pyotr Fursenko. He was the di
rector of the facility. I think the spy had him on tape, along with Pavel
Kazakov.”

           
“Kazakov? The drug dealer? That scum runs Fisikous?”

           
“He runs Metyor Aerospace.” Luger said. “And be runs several other
companies, too.”

           
“Tak. He runs construction companies, shipping, banking, petroleum,
exporting, mining—“

           
“Petroleum? I remember something about him building a pipeline from the
Caspian Sea
to the
Black Sea
.”

           
“Yes. That was completed a year or so ago. He pumps almost a million
barrels a day from the Caspian and ships it through .Azerbaijan and
Georgia
.
Ukraine
buys much of it.
He—” And then Smoliy stopped and gasped again. “And I heard he wanted to build
another pipeline, a huge one. from the
Black Sea
to
Western Europe
, to bypass the
bottlenecks in the
Bosporus
Straits
and
Turkey
's high transit
tariffs.”

           
“
Western Europe
from the
Black Sea
.” Luger mused.
"That means through
Bulgaria
—”

           
“And
Macedonia
and
Albania
.” Smoliy said
incredulously.

           
“It can't be.” Luger said. “It can’t be that simple.”

           
The word was that Kazakov did not build the pipeline because of the war
in Kosovo, the unstable relations between
Albania
and the West, and
the West's increasing intervention in
Macedonia
—perhaps even
Macedonia
to join NATO.”
Smoliy said. “But with Thorn wishing to disengage from NATO, and
Russia
wanting to secure
its position in the Balkans, the opportunity presents itself to get the
pipeline built...

           
“With the help of the Russian army.” Luger said. “Russian peacekeepers’
swarm into the Balkans and secure the region, and Kazakov is free to build the
pipeline. And if any governments balk, they find a city or maybe even their
national capital under attack.”

           
“Under attack by a stealth aircraft—unseen, silent and untraceable.”
Smoliy said. “
Russia
can claim
complete ignorance of the attacks, and Western spy satellites have no idea
where to look for the stealth aircraft or have any idea where it will strike again.”

           
“It must have struck in
Turkey
.” Luger said.
That's why the
Turks are
packing up and going home—their country is under attack."

 
          
“There
was nothing in the news about an attack on
Turkey
," Smoliy said. “But I cannot find out
anymore."

 
          
“I
think I can," Luger said “It might be a problem getting out of here, but
I’l1 try."

 
          
“Are
you a prisoner there?"

 
          
“No,"
Luger said, “but I’m not free to go, either."

 
          
“Says
who, David?" Smoliy asked. “The same people who want to court-martial you?
They send you to a hospital because you might be going insane? If you are, they
will confine you for the rest of your life, but if you are not, they will
court-martial you? What loyalty do you have for these men?"

 
          
“Good
point," David said. “But I’ll need to get plugged back into the
information network at Dreamland."

 
          
“And
I know just the person to set that up for you." Smoliy said. “Be patient.
We will be in touch shortly."

 
          
Dozens
of trucks rolled up onto Nellis Air Force Base's main parking ramp, and crews
from many nations were helping load pallets of supplies into two Turkish C-135
military cargo planes. At the same time, crews were busily preflighting the
Turkish F-16 fighters, preparing them for immediate takeoff. Crews were also
loading weapons aboard the F-l6s—all of the Turkish fighters that w ere fully
capable of carrying air-to- air weapons were armed with AIM-9 Sidew inder
missiles plus ammunition for the internal guns. The cargo planes w ere going to
have fighter escorts all the way home. All the men and women worked quickly,
purposefully, some even feverishly . . .

 
          
...
as if they w ere preparing for war.

 
          
Inside,
the mass departure briefing had just concluded, and the crews were splitting up
into individual flights. The Turks worked swiftly, speaking only Turkish, not
willing even to attempt to slow their pace long enough to translate their thoughts
into English. American crews simply helped out where they could and stayed out
of the way. This time, it was not their fight. Their commander-in-chief said
so. Their allies, their fellow air warriors, were going home to prepare to
fight the unseen, invisible enemy on their own.

           
Colonel General Roman Smoliy,
commander of the Ukrainian Air Force, stepped to the door of one of the
briefing rooms as the flight briefing finished. Major-General Hrdal Sivarek.
chief of staff of the Turkish Air Force, was packing up his papers, preparing
to depart, “I need to speak with you. sir.” Smoliy said in English.

 
          
Sivarek
looked at the big Ukrainian, “I am sorry. Colonel-General, but I do not have
time.”

 
          
“I
received a briefing about the incident over the
Black Sea
," Smoliy said. “I have information you
must hear, and I have a proposal—”

 
          
“What
incident over the
Black
Sea
?” Sivarek
asked. “I know of no such incident. I must go.”

 
          
“General,
I know you lost an F-16 fighter earlier today while it was on a training exercise
over the Black Sea,” Smoliy said “I know your pilots and your ground radar
controllers never saw whatever downed your plane. But because you have some of
your country’s best fighter pilots here, your government has ordered all of
your forces returned to
Turkey
immediately and to make preparations for
war. although you do not know against whom yet—Kurds, Russians, Greeks,
Iranians, Iraqis. Syrians, Martians.”

 
          
Sivarek’s
eyes were wide with disbelief—he knew there was no use in denying it any
longer. “How do you know all this. General?”

 
          
“Because
I briefed him, sir,” Major Nancy Cheshire said. She stepped into the briefing
room and closed the door behind her. “I intercepted the satellite feeds and
radar data, and combined them with CIA listening post intercepts to piece the
incident together. I don’t know why you chose not to brief NATO on what
happened—”