Iron Wolf (25 page)

W
ARSAW,
P
OLAND

T
HAT NIGHT

“
Na zdrowie!
Cheers!” Teodor Górski slurred, knocking back another shot of the faintly yellow-tinged Å»ubrówka vodka. He smacked his lips, savoring the faint overtones of almond and vanilla. And then smacked them again. “ 'S damn good,” he forced out. “And strong. Feels way more than eighty proof. Can't hardly feel my mouth . . .”

The beautiful redhead sitting across from him on the bed smiled slyly. “Careful there, tiger. You don't want to wind up with a limp noodle, do you?”

Grinning foolishly, Górski fell back on the pillows. God, Franciszka was an eye-opener. Not only was she stunning and going to be his for the whole night, but she'd even come with a gift—a wonderful, delicious, expensive bottle of vodka. Imagine that, he thought. A whore bringing him a present! The other sergeants and corporals at the base who were always teasing him because he'd put on a few extra kilos over the past few years should see him now! None of
them
could say they were about to enjoy the favors of such a gorgeous piece of ass.

For free, too.

That was the best part of this deal. He'd just made almost thirty-four thousand zlotys and he wasn't even going to have part with one thin groszy for hours and hours of screwing. All she'd asked for was one of his cigarettes. The opened pack lay on the nightstand table.

He frowned, or rather tried to, since his face felt so numb now that he wasn't sure his mouth was moving the way he wanted it to. Why
had
Franciszka asked him for a cigarette? She wasn't smoking it. The cigarette was just lying there on the nightstand by her purse, along with a book of matches.

She sat quietly, watching him through amused eyes. “You seem to be having some trouble, Teodor. Too much to drink?” She
shook her head. Her smile changed somehow—transforming into an odd, warped, mean little expression that sent shivers down his spine. “That would be foolish, wouldn't it? How can we have our fun if you're too soused to see straight or even paw at me? For shame.”

Górski tried to lift his head. Then his arms. Then his fingers. Nothing worked. He couldn't move! His eyes widened. My God. Oh my God, he thought, starting to panic.

Franciszka nodded calmly, leaning forward to study his pupils. “The drug usually takes full effect in about ten minutes, Sergeant.” She checked the watch on her thin, elegant wrist. “In your case, it took almost fifteen. I guess that's because you have so much fat piled up around your ugly belly.”

Casually, she leaned across him to reach into the nightstand drawer. Her full breasts brushed across his sweating, immobile face. “Nothing? No twitch in your little
chuj,
your dick? How sad.”

She showed him the packetful of cash she'd pulled out of the drawer, the packet the two Ukrainians had given to him. “Did you think this was for you?” Still smiling nastily, she shook her head, slipping the packet into her gold lamé purse. “Well, you were wrong. The money was always going to be mine, Sergeant. As a fee for my
special
talents. But don't worry, you can have
all
of the vodka. Every
last
drop.”

Turning back to Górski, she picked up the half-full bottle and upended it above him. Vodka splashed over his frozen, horrified face, unshaven chin, and chest, soaking his unbuttoned shirt and the grubby T-shirt he wore underneath. Rivulets of the high-proof alcohol dripped off onto the bedclothes.

“There now, see the mess you've made?” she said in disgust. “You have
so
many bad habits, Sergeant,” she told him, picking up the cigarette and lighting it. “Including smoking.”

Holding the lit cigarette between her fingers, she stood up off the bed, turned gracefully, and placed it between his frozen lips. “In fact, I think smoking is what's going to kill you.”

The cigarette fell out of his mouth and onto his chest. With a
soft, devilish
whoosh,
Teodor Górski's alcohol-soaked clothing went up in flames. In seconds, the whole bed was engulfed in a rippling, dancing sea of fire.

The woman who called herself Franciszka left his apartment without looking back, pausing only to wipe her fingerprints off the door handle. By the time she reached the sidewalk outside the building, the curtains pulled across his windows were already smoldering.

I
RON
W
OLF
S
QUADRON,

P
OWIDZ,
P
OLAND

S
EVERAL DAYS LATER

Wayne Macomber waited impatiently for the solid black executive jet to finish taxiing off the rain-drenched main runway and into the camouflaged aircraft shelter. As soon as the jet's twin engines spooled down, he was in motion—striding toward the forward cabin door, which was already opening.

Kevin Martindale trotted down the air stairs, preceded, as usual, by his two stern-faced bodyguards. “Good morning, Major Macomber,” the former president said cheerily. “I hope you don't mind my dropping in unannounced on you like this.”

“It's your dime, sir,” Whack said, grinning back. “But if you expected to catch us with our drawers down, you missed a bet. CID One had your supersecret itinerary pegged as soon as you hit the send key on that fancy, high-security laptop of yours.”

“He did, did he?” Martindale replied. He shook his head ruefully. “I really must talk seriously to our mutual friend about that obsessive computer-hacking habit of his. Breaking into classified Russian systems is one thing. Breaking into sensitive Scion databases so easily is another.”

“Oh, you can talk to him,” Whack agreed. “For all the good it'll do you. When have you ever known that guy to let the rules get in the way of accomplishing his mission?”

Martindale chuckled, acknowledging the hit. In all the years he'd known Patrick McLanahan, he'd never seen the other man buffaloed by formal protocol or conventional wisdom. If the former Air Force officer had wanted to get something he thought was important done, he'd always bulldozed right through any opposition—no matter what it cost him personally or how it affected his military career. Which, of course, was what had made him perfect for Martindale's various secret weapons projects when he was in government and now for Scion's private ventures.

“Now that you're here, what can I do for you?” Macomber asked. “Or are you bringing us some news? Like about when all this training stops and all the fun stuff starts.”

“As in an action alert?” Martindale shook his head. “Sorry, Major. We're still in a holding pattern—which suits our Polish employers just fine. And frankly, I don't blame them one bit. Besides, we're still short of most of the aircraft we need. Let's not rush into a war we're not ready for, and let's hope Gennadiy Gryzlov gives us the time we need to get ready.”

“You think he will?”

Martindale shrugged. “Possibly. The Russians are pretty quiet right now. They've killed a number of armed insurgents trying to cross the Dnieper and no one has laid a real glove on their occupation forces yet. It could be that Gryzlov and his commanders are satisfied with the half of Ukraine they've got and they're not hungry for anything more.”

“Yeah, right,” Whack said, with a skeptical look in his eyes. “That'd be a first.”

“It would,” Martindale agreed, with equal skepticism. “My personal belief is that it's only a matter of time before the Russians see what else they can grab while the grabbing's good.”

“Well, if things go south, I can tell you that the Iron Wolf ground component is up and running pretty damned well,” Macomber said.

“I'd like to see that for myself if you don't mind, Major,” the former president said, softening his insistence with a practiced, self-deprecating smile. “Those of us who sit and serve behind desks sometimes need reassuring that the men at the tip of the spear aren't as soft as we are.”

“No problem,” Macomber said, leading the way to the Polish-manufactured Tarpan Honker 4x4 he'd commandeered to drive around the sprawling Powidz compound. As soon as Martindale had settled himself in the passenger seat, Whack Macomber took off at high speed, careening out of the shelter and onto a muddy side road heading deeper into the woods around the airfield proper.

It had been raining all night, but the big masses of dark clouds
scudding overhead looked as though they were finally starting to break up.

“You won't see General McLanahan on this visit,” he said, peering through the mud-splashed windshield. “I've got CID One out on a field recon prowl about thirty klicks north of here. I wanna see just how effective that fancy-ass thermal camouflage is in real life.”

Martindale looked worried by that news. “You sent a Cybernetic Infantry Device roaming around outside the security perimeter?”

“Yeah.”

“Isn't that unnecessarily risky?” Martindale asked, frowning. “What if the CID is spotted by people who aren't cleared to know about them? Like Polish civilians, for example?”

Macomber glanced at him. “Well, that
would
suck, wouldn't it?” He shrugged. “But it would suck a lot less than finding out that thermal adaptive shit doesn't work the way it's supposed to when it's too late—like say when we're ass-deep in Russian troops and tanks.”

“I certainly hope you have a cover story ready if anything goes wrong,” Martindale said stiffly. “I assured President Wilk and his cabinet that the Iron Wolf Squadron would operate covertly as long as possible.”

“Relax,” Whack said, grinning again. “If some Polish farmer starts screaming about a giant robot running loose in his crops, we'll just say it's a special-effects prop from a science-fiction movie we're filming.”

“That might work,” Martindale allowed, though with evident reluctance. He grimaced. “You certainly like to push your luck, though, Major.”

“Yep, I sure as hell do,” Whack admitted placidly. He showed his teeth. “Then again, Mr. President, that's exactly why you pay me the big bucks, right?”

“There you have me,” the older man agreed slowly, again with a rueful shake of his head.

The dirt road curved around a bend and entered a thicker belt of woods. The trees grew so close on both sides of the track that it was as if they were driving into a leafy green tunnel.

Suddenly Macomber slammed on the brakes. They jerked to a stop just short of a fallen tree blocking most of the narrow road. It looked as though it had blown down during last night's storm.

Growling under his breath, Whack started to back up. And stopped just as quickly. They were surrounded by grim-faced soldiers who seemed to have risen up right out of the ground in the blink of an eye. Masked in mud and camouflage, they were all aiming M4 carbines at the two men in the 4x4.

Before Martindale or Macomber could say or do anything, one of the camouflaged soldiers stepped closer. “Bang,” he said simply, sighting down his rifle at them. “You're both dead.”

“That we are, Ian,” Whack said, grinning now. “Dead as a doornail or any other part of the goddamned door you care to name. Nice doing business with you and your boys.”

“A pleasure, sir,” the other man told him, matching his grin—with white teeth that gleamed oddly bright against the drab veil of brown mud and green and black camouflage stripes covering his face. He sketched a quick salute and nodded to his team.

Moving rapidly, they hauled the fallen tree out of the road, clearing the way for Macomber's Tarpan to drive on.

“Who the devil was that?” Martindale demanded when they were out of sight.

“Captain Ian Schofield,” Whack told him. “I snagged him out of the Canadian Special Operations Regiment last year. He was busy going crazy doing nothing interesting—in the usual peacetime army kind of way.”

“And what does he do now?”

“I made Schofield the commander of my deep-penetration recon and ambush teams,” Macomber said. He grinned. “And as you can see, he's very, very good at it.”

“Did you know he was going to pull that ambush on us?” Martindale demanded.

“Nope,” Whack said fervently. He shook his head in wonderment. “Last I heard, Ian and his guys were way north of here,
running cover for CID One.” He glanced at the gray-haired chief executive of Scion. “When I said my Iron Wolf troops were good, I meant it.”

“They're certainly . . . surprising,” Martindale agreed sourly. Then he forced a thin smile. “I'm just glad their little stunt didn't give me a heart attack.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” Macomber said slowly.

“You guess so?” Martindale asked, raising an eyebrow.

Whack nodded, holding in another grin. “Well, sure. With General McLanahan riding CID One practically full-time, I've only got one spare robot. If I had to sling you in CID Two to keep you alive, my combat power would be cut in half. And that would be bad.”

“You know something, Major?” Martindale said, plainly exasperated. “You are one amazingly insubordinate son of a bitch.”

“Yes, sir,” Macomber agreed happily. “That's why—”

“I pay you the big bucks,” the former president finished for him. Slowly, almost against his will, he snorted a short laugh. “All right, I give up, Major. Just try to get me through the rest of this show-and-tell you've obviously got planned in one piece, okay?”

“I'll do my damnedest,” Macomber assured him cheerfully. He spun the wheel to the left, turning onto another dirt track that ran west. “Next stop, the Rock.”

“The Rock?”

“The Remote Operations Control Center,” Macomber explained. “The high-tech playground for Brad McLanahan and his Flying Circus of Merry Young Aviators. They've been real busy lately figuring out how to get shot down in computer-simulated XF-111s and other aircraft in a number of different, interesting, and expensive ways. Along with some other things that might surprise you, especially once the tailoring receipts come through from corporate accounting.”

“Am I going to like this, Whack?” Martindale said, obviously trying to figure out if he should sound angry, irritated, or just plain confused. Macomber only smiled.

When they arrived outside the large, antenna-studded control center, he led the way inside and went straight toward the ready room. He stopped short of the open door and silently motioned Martindale forward to get a good look at what was going on.

None of the pilots or weapons officers crowding the room noticed them. They were too busy taking down mission briefing notes using tablet computers. All of them wore dark, rifle-green uniform jackets, collared shirts, and black ties of a design that looked something like World War II–era RAF battle dress. Their squadron patch showed a metal gray robotic wolf's head with glowing red eyes on a bright green background.

Martindale shook his head in disbelief.

Brad McLanahan was up at the front, running through the details of their next exercise. “We're going to be practicing a pretty tricky air defense plan this morning. It's something Captain Rozek and I have worked out in consultation with Colonel Pawe
ł
Kasperek, the commanding officer of Third Tactical Squadron. Colonel Kasperek and his guys fly F-16 Falcons. Our plan is designed to coordinate their fighters with a mix of our unmanned and remote-piloted aircraft. We'll be testing it against a simulated heavy, full-spectrum Russian air attack—an attack that will include Su-34 fighter-bombers armed with top-of-the-line air-to-ground and antiradiation missiles, backed by Su-35 fighters flying cover. And there may be a few other unpleasant surprises, depending on which variant the computer picks to throw at us.”

“You trying to get us all virtually killed again, Brad?” one of the pilots asked plaintively.

The younger McLanahan grinned. “Not everyone, Bill. Just you. See, you're not being paranoid, because I really
am
out to get you.” The Iron Wolf pilots, including the one who'd spoken up, laughed easily at that.

“Nominal mission time will be 0200 hours,” Brad went on. “Once the program starts running, we'll get a better fix on the weather, but it'll probably be crappy.”

“So, basically, a dark and stormy night,” another of the Iron Wolf weapons officers chimed in.

“Right on the nose, Jack,” Brad agreed. He turned more serious. “You can expect that we'll be operating in a high electronic-noise environment, one where the Russians are trying to jam the hell out of Polish air defense radars—”

Figuring this was a good time to break away before they inadvertently interrupted the briefing, Macomber jerked his head back down the hall. Martindale nodded, without any readable expression on his face.

Outside the Remote Operations Control Center, Martindale let his breath out in a rush. “Uniforms?” he said slowly, shaking his head again. “Brad McLanahan has my Scion air crews wearing military
uniforms
?”

“Yep.” Whack shrugged his massive shoulders. “He claims the uniforms are helping him build unit cohesion—along with kicking their sorry asses in computer-simulated air battles. Besides, they're not just Scion employees anymore. They're part of the Iron Wolf Squadron now.”

“Would your other special operators wear uniforms like that?” Martindale asked dubiously.

“Outside of a combat environment where camouflage and coordination make sense, you mean?” Macomber said. “Hell, no. But then again, my people are used to wearing anything they need to blend in with the locals. Up to and including turbans, full beards, and tennis shoes . . . you name it. Dressing up all nice and pretty like the kid's elite aviators back there wouldn't be their first choice.”

“But is it working the way Brad claims?”

“Yeah. Yeah, it is.” Macomber nodded. “I thought it was a lot of crap at first, that the kid had gone loco. Or maybe just power-crazed. But I've gotta admit that bunch of prima donnas you saddled him with are starting to shape up into the kind of fighting squadron you and General McLanahan wanted. Those guys and gals were getting their heads handed to them by the computer a few days ago. Now
they're actually starting to win some of the crazy-ass battle scenarios the kid tosses at them.”