Vektor (47 page)

She was dead right, as usual. The single 14.5mm gun in each BTRs turret had an effective range of three kilometers and could fire a variety of armor-piercing or high-explosive projectiles, all of which could penetrate the thin armor on Farrington’s vehicle with little effort. There was no way Farrington could approach Slavgorod with the BTRs guarding the road.

“I’ll notify Sanderson immediately,” he said, feeling guilty about the subterfuge circling the air between them.

“Base, this is control,” Berg said. “I am passing positive control of Black Rain to your station. Satellite imagery confirms the presence of four BTR-80s and two Tigers on the approach road. I recommend using ordnance sparingly. Additional units have entered the city from the south and may present a challenge.”

“Which unit is Black Rain?” Audra said.

“Hold on,” Berg said.

He didn’t meet her gaze, knowing he couldn’t lie directly to her face. He concentrated on the screen and activated the communications link to Weatherman, a CIA drone operator working out of the mobile control station at Manas Air Base. Berg had managed to surreptitiously deliver one of the CIA’s MQ-9 Reaper drones to Manas, hidden amidst the logistics equipment necessary to support the temporary presence of three top-secret helicopters. The secrecy surrounding the helicopters kept prying eyes off the delivery manifests, drawing little attention to the arrival of one additional C-17 Globemaster III heavy transport aircraft from Jalalabad Air Base.

“Weatherman, this is Berg. Standing by to transfer tactical control of Black Rain.”

“This is Weatherman. Wait one.”

“Karl, who are you talking to?” Audra insisted.

“This is Weatherman. I have positively authenticated the request for tactical control of Black Rain. ETA 0418 local.”

“Good luck and happy hunting,” Berg said, ready to come clean with Audra.

He turned his head toward the watch supervisor and nodded, watching her immediately transmit an order over her headset to one of the technicians in the operations center.

“Karl, I need you to explain what is going on here,” Audra said.

“I’ve arranged an insurance policy for Sanderson’s crew,” he said.

“Please tell me you didn’t put one of our drones over Russia.”

“You know I have a bad track record with drones,” he said, hoping she might find the humor in his comment.

“I don’t find that amusing, Karl. Not in the least. Your track record involves losing drones. We can’t lose one of those on Russian soil, for many reasons,” Audra said.

“I’m not going to lose this one.”

She glanced around and moved her seat closer. “It’s already lost,” she said, looking at him for agreement.

She tilted her head and managed to look even more incredulous, which Berg didn’t think was possible at this point.

“You sent a Reaper?” she demanded.

“The Predators don’t have the range to make the round trip,” Berg said.

“That didn’t stop you last time.”

“See? I’m becoming more responsible.”

“What was all the head nodding with Ms. Halverson about?” she said, gesturing toward the watch floor supervisor.

“I’m cutting the satellite feed to the Situation Room for a minute or two,” he said.

She shook her head and leaned back in the chair. “I don’t know what to say, Karl. You’ve gone too far on this one. I think this might have to be our last operation together,” Audra said.

“You mean you’re not going to fire me?” Berg said.

“How could I fire you? I can’t sit here and pretend that this isn’t partially my fault. I’ve encouraged you for far too long. I’ve swept enough of your operations under the rug for one career. I need a break from that kind of stress. Our friendship needs a break from it,” she said.

“I’m sorry to have kept you in the dark on this, but I wanted to give you and Manning some plausible deniability here. I need him to look the president and the director in the eye at the White House and convincingly tell them that he has no idea what just happened. I need to keep them all confused long enough to get Farrington to the border.”

“You better pray that Black Rain doesn’t get shot down over Russia,” she said.

He was moments from making an ill-timed joke about purposely crashing the drone, but Audra beat him to it.

“And I don’t care how bad it gets out there, you will not turn one of our Reapers into a kamikaze like you did before. Are we crystal clear on that?”

“I’ve already built that restriction into the parameters. Sanderson can only pick and prioritize targets. Once the eight Hellfires are expended, the drone is back under our control,” he said, wondering if he needed to further clarify this with Weatherman.

Chapter 63

5:17 PM

White House Situation Room

Washington, D.C.

Thomas Manning stood along the back wall of the small conference room and watched the satellite feed with curious interest. Reports from Karl Berg over the communications feed evaporated when Sanderson’s team sped past the first possible detour point, six kilometers from the city. He’d spent the next few minutes urgently trying to reach Berg, as the Tiger continued to barrel down the road, skipping several more opportunities to deviate from a suicidal engagement with Russian armored vehicles, and sending the president and his staff into a general uproar.

When Berg didn’t answer his repeated requests, dozens of scenarios swirled through his head, none of which held promise. Did they lose communications with Farrington’s team? Did someone sabotage the CIA operations center? Was Farrington ignoring orders, thinking he could take on armored vehicles?

The Tiger continued to close on the city, bringing everyone to the edge of their seats. Farrington’s vehicle suddenly stopped three and a half kilometers from the Russian BTR ambush site, eliciting a collective sigh of relief from the room. When the Tiger once again accelerated at reckless speed toward the city, the president stood up from his seat and turned to CIA Director Copley.

“They’re never going to make it through! What are they doing?”

“I don’t know, Mr. President. I can’t get through to my operations center,” Manning interrupted.

“The BTRs are on the move, heading east to intercept on the road. They’ll be within gun range in less than thirty seconds,” Lieutenant General Gordon said.

Manning confirmed the armored vehicles’ movement on the screen. All four BTRs had moved in a column onto the east-west road running from Znamenka to Slavgorod. In a few seconds, the vehicles would spread out into a “line abreast” formation, exposing Farrington’s Tiger to four 14.5mm guns. If the Tiger didn’t alter course within the next few seconds, they would all bear witness to a massacre. He wondered if this was Farrington’s plan, if Sanderson and Berg had uncovered information over the past few silent minutes that had sealed the team’s fate, and Farrington intended to go down fighting.

“Isn’t there any way to communicate with the team? I thought we were talking to them just a few minutes ago?” the president said.

“I’ve lost communications with the group controlling Blackjack,” Manning said.

“Well, somebody better warn them that they’re about to be taken out! I think we should send the helicopters back to Manas immediately. Something isn’t right here,” the president said.

“Mr. President, the helicopters haven’t been detected. There’s no reason to send them back prematurely,” General Gordon said.

“It’s not a premature decision, General,” the president said. “Those men are as good as dead.”

“We can send them back in a few minutes, Mr. President. What’s the range of those guns again? 3000 meters?” Jacob Remy asked.

Remy’s cold statement wasn’t lost on Manning, or anybody in the room. Lieutenant General Gordon penetrated him with a look of disgust and hatred that might have caused Remy to lose voluntary control of his bladder…if the president’s chief of staff had bothered to take his eyes off the wall monitor. Instead, his gaze remained glued to the massive screen, eagerly waiting to watch the thermal image of Farrington’s Tiger blossom into a bright white circle. Before anyone could answer Remy’s question, the two screens displaying the operation’s satellite feeds went blank, catapulting the room into chaos.

“Operations, this is Thomas Manning. We just lost our satellite feed in the Situation Room. What’s going on over there?” he demanded.

“We’re not sure. Some kind of technical difficulties with the satellite link. Should be back up in a minute or two. Everything is under control,” a familiar voice replied.

He almost screamed into the headset that nothing appeared under control, but something gave him pause. The voice belonged to Karl Berg, and he’d answered immediately. Manning thought about the events leading up to this moment and the incredible risk they had all undertaken to coordinate the team’s extraction. The possibility of encountering light armored vehicles in their path hadn’t been a surprise. In fact, Pentagon and CIA analysts had accurately predicted the response and deployment of the Russian assets on nearly every level. The strong likelihood of a sizable roadblock north of Slavgorod had been part of the early briefings. Now it made sense to him. He stopped with that thought and whispered into the headset.

“Berg, you devious son-of-a-bitch.”

“Did you get through to your operations center?” the president demanded.

“I did, Mr. President. They experienced a problem with the satellite link. Should be back on-line in a minute. They don’t know what happened.”

Without hesitating, the National Security Advisor suggested the possibility that the Russians had disabled U.S. satellites with a directed EMP blast. His declaration plunged the already agitated room into further chaos and temporarily yanked him out of the spotlight. Manning looked up at the director, struggling not to grin. The director wore an emotionless face, but he could see it in the director’s eyes. Like Manning, the director was engaged in an all-out battle to internalize his suspicions that the timing of the satellite link failure was far from random.

Chapter 64

4:18 AM

3 Kilometers outside of Slavgorod

Russian Federation

The wind punched through the missing windshield, mercilessly ripping through the Tiger’s cabin as Misha increased their speed to eighty-five miles per hour. The frost-heave-damaged asphalt road connecting Znamenka to Slavgorod had left his spine rattled and his stomach in knots. Despite the shattering discomfort, successfully navigating the entire road at highway speed had far exceeded his expectations for the Russian equivalent to backwater USA. Based on what he had witnessed during their trek westward to the border, backwater was a generous description of the isolated network of villages and trails defining their southwestern Siberian experience. He couldn’t imagine a commerce-related reason for the government to pave the road between these two towns, but was grateful that some nameless Communist Party bureaucrat had at one time persisted in his or her pursuit of the precious bitumen surface his vehicle travelled.

He stared at the monochromatic green image of two Tiger vehicles less than a kilometer ahead, partially obscured by a thin stand of tall trees extending north. The line of trees, planted long ago by Slavgorod city planners to cut the frozen winds sweeping across the Siberian steppes, rapidly grew in his viewfinder. At this speed, it took less than thirty seconds to travel a kilometer. Sanderson was cutting it a little close.

“Stand by to engage targets!” Farrington said.

“We can’t keep slugging it out like this,” Gosha replied.

“Have some faith, boys,” Sanderson said over the communications net.

For the final phase of their exfiltration, Farrington had patched the satellite phone directly into his comms rig, adding Sanderson to the intrasquad feed. With elements of the 21
^st
Motor Rifle Division pouring into the city from the south, the ride through Slavgorod would require quick communications and multi-sensory input from all members of his team.

Of course, if Black Rain didn’t immediately produce some bad weather for the approaching Tigers, they might not reach Slavgorod. He scanned the northwest horizon, looking for any sign that they would not have to engage in another close-range gun battle. He couldn’t imagine the Russian gunners making the same mistake twice. A single flash erupted on the horizon, followed by multiple flashes.

“Missiles away,” Sanderson said over the net.

“Gosha, distance to targets?” Farrington said.

“Less than five hundred meters!”

He did a quick mental calculation involving estimated missile time of flight and flipped up his night vision goggles.

“Get inside the Tiger!” he said.

Less than a second after he heard Gosha drop into the cabin, a brilliant flash illuminated the landscape ahead of them, immediately followed by a shockwave that rattled their 12,000 pound armored vehicle like a toy. Misha kept the Tiger steady on the road as they sped toward the inferno.

A few seconds later, the heat radiated by the burning wreckage on the side of the road became too intense, forcing him to shield his face with his hands. Through his fingers, he caught a brief, ninety mile per hour glimpse of the carnage wreaked by the Hellfire’s 100-pound high-explosive warhead.

One of the vehicles lay upside down but mostly intact against the burning trees, smoke and flame pouring from its windows. The other Tiger hadn’t moved from its original position, but there was little left to indicate what it had been before the Hellfire missile had plunged through the thin armor. Through the flames dancing in the grass, all he could discern was a twisted, smoking chassis. The drone operator had assigned one missile to the pair of Tigers, correctly assuming that the force of the warhead would effectively destroy both of the tightly parked vehicles.

Two fireballs ascended skyward on the horizon, in the vicinity of Slavgorod’s city limits, drawing his attention away from the grisly destruction. Additional flashes closely followed, momentarily exposing several small buildings previously shrouded in darkness.