Command Authority (43 page)

“Back to the KGB guy, Ox.”

“Right. So this delirious chap says he’s KGB, and he’s in the gulag on an operation. Everyone just laughed or what have you, then he starts in with how he was a paratrooper who was there when the presidential palace was taken in Kabul on the first day of the Afghanistan war. Claimed he then went into GRU, that’s Russian military intelligence, fighting in Afghanistan.

“I was eatin’ me soup through all this, listening in to the bloke, of course, but it wasn’t until the guy told the doctor to contact a number in Moscow and report that Zenith needs emergency extraction that I knew I’d stumbled into a piece of me own history.”

Ryan was transfixed by the story. “What happened to him?”

“Like I said, no one believed him, but he was persuasive enough that one of the nurses picked up the phone. You’ve got to understand, everyone must have been thinking, ‘It’s probably just the fever talking, but if there’s a one-in-a-thousand chance he’s on the up-and-up, then we might as well make the call,’ because everyone working in that infirmary would have been shot if his story panned out and they had done nothing.”

“Right.”

“The nurse calls, the guy on the other end of the line says he doesn’t have a fucking clue what she’s on about, and he hangs up. Everyone figures that’s that. They decide the bloke on the gurney covered in his own puke and blood and shit has a coin toss of a chance to survive, and they roll him into a corner, just like they’d do to any other
zek
.”

Ryan realized there was more. His heart was pounding while he waited for Oxley to tell the rest.

“Five minutes later, I was in the kitchen pouring salt into hot water. I drank it down fast, and within a few seconds I was pukin’ across the chow hall. They wheeled me into the infirmary.”

Ryan was impressed. “What did you see?”

“I didn’t see Zenith, unfortunately, I was shackled to my bed. But I did hear what was going on. The trucks came around midnight. It was a regular prisoner transfer, wasn’t KGB, it was the Ministry of Prisons. They had the papers to take the other
zek
away. I heard the commotion as they wheeled him out.

“Later that night a bloke with a mop came by my bed. I offered him all the food I’d managed to save up in me cell to tell me what he’d seen and heard that day.

“He told me the
zek
sick with typhoid had called himself Talanov.”

“Oh my God,” Ryan muttered.

“The prisoner-transfer truck showed up with doctors in the back of the vehicle ready to tend to him. Didn’t sound like any prisoner transfer I’d ever heard of.” Ox shrugged. “By the time this chap told me the story, the
zek
named Talanov who’d said he was a KGB officer called Zenith was gone from Syktyvkar.”

Ryan believed the story, or he at least believed that Ox believed it.

Oxley kept his eyes on Jack now. There was a lack of trust there still, but Jack also got the impression Oxley didn’t know what else to do. He couldn’t go home. After a moment, he said, “I’ll stick around for a wee bit, Ryan. But I’m watching you. You got it?”

“I’ve got it.”

“What’s our next move, then?”

“We untie that asshole in the bathroom, leave him here, get back in the car and go someplace else. Don’t know where, but we’ll wing it. Once we get there I’ll call a friend who can tell me everything I’d ever want to know about every phone number on Oleg’s phone. That should help.”

“Sounds like a bloody handy friend.”

“He has his moments.”

E
ric Conway and Andre Page headed out to their helicopter at five a.m. They’d been up for more than an hour already, drinking coffee and going over weather reports in the flight operations center. Conway had spent a little longer than usual at the weather desk in Flight Ops, because a thick fog had settled over Cherkasy, and storms were brewing to the north. It was something they would have to monitor, but this was combat; it would not affect their planned six a.m. departure.

Even though there was a war going on out there somewhere, it seemed quiet and peaceful here. Most of the Ukrainian ground forces at the base had rolled out for the front lines as soon as the fighting broke out, leaving behind the company of American multipurpose scout helos, the Ranger security force, and Midas’s Joint Operations Center.

Four of Bravo Company’s eight matte-black Kiowas were already up in the air to support Ukrainian Mi-24 attack helicopters fighting against ground units near Chuhuiv Air Base, a half-hour flying time to the east.

Those OH-58s would be used to fire lasers at targets in locations where the Special Forces and Delta teams were not available. Their work would be no more or less dangerous than today’s flight by Conway and Page, except for the fact Eric and Dre would be flying into battle without any air defense missiles.

Black Wolf Two Six wore four Hellfire missiles on its pylons, and that was all. They had considered operating with a pair of Stingers on one pylon and a pair of Hellfires on the other, but Conway decided to trust in the advanced countermeasures of his helicopter as well as its radar, and to give up air-to-air capability to buy himself double the air-to-ground capability.

They finished their preflight workup outside the helo and each man walked to his side of the OH-58. Here, they stood at the crew station doors, put on their helmets, attached their commo sets, and unhooked their M4 rifles from the slings around their necks. It was impossible for them to fly with rifles hanging off their chests, so they stored the weapons on the dashboard above the instrument panels, keeping them within reach at all times so they could grab them and fire out the open sides of the little helicopter if necessary. They kept a few frag grenades and smoke markers Velcroed into position here as well.

A couple of carbines and some frags wasn’t much when compared with the four antiarmor missiles on the outboard stores, but the battle rifles had come in handy for the two men before. Two years earlier, in Afghanistan, they’d been on a close air-support mission over a group of Dutch coalition infantry in danger of being overrun by Taliban on a hillside. They launched all of the Kiowa’s Hydra seventy-millimeter rockets at an enemy position, wiping out the threat there, but almost immediately after this an RPG streaked past the windscreen of the OH-58. Conway saw the origin of the launch, called out the location to his copilot, then turned the helo ninety degrees. He flew sideways at the threat while Dre aimed his M4 and emptied a full magazine at the RPG crew, killing both men before they’d been able to fire another rocket at either the helicopter or the Dutch troops in the valley.

The two young warrant officers flew back to Jalalabad celebrating with high fives, but Page had been nearly despondent upon returning to the ready room after the fact when it became clear the Kiowa’s gun camera hadn’t recorded the shooting for posterity because it had been positioned forward, not facing out the side of the helicopter.

Both men knew that the campaign here in Ukraine would bear little resemblance to what they had experienced around J-bad. The Russian military, with its Air Force and long-range missiles, along with its sophisticated attack helos and T-90 tanks, made the Taliban look like amateurs.

While they prepped for takeoff this foggy morning, each of the men worked from a checklist, going through the various systems on the helicopter; Conway focused on testing his Sperry Flight Control System and his avionics, while Page spooled through his cameras, targeting computer, and mast-mounted sight laser designation and backup systems.

Both men tested their comms, and both men felt over their bodies for all SERE equipment.

Shortly before six a.m. their crew chief gave them a thumbs-up on the pad and Conway started the Rolls-Royce engine. There was a ten-second-long high-pitched whine before the main rotor even began to spin, and it took more than a minute for the Allison engine to transfer enough power to the main and tail rotors for takeoff. Another round of checklists was tackled; by now Page was talking on a channel to the crew chief, discussing the possibility of a quick return to the pad to get more Hellfires in the case of heavy action.

The crew chief insisted he’d be ready for them when they came back, whether it was in four hours or four minutes.

At six a.m. Eric Conway keyed his microphone. “Black Wolf Two Six, Cherkasy Ground, over?”

“Cherkasy Ground, Black Wolf Two Six.”

“Black Wolf Two Six, ready for takeoff.”

The flight control officer cleared the OH-58 for takeoff and a southerly departure out of the base, and the black bird rose slowly into the foggy morning.

They were just a few hundred feet in the air when a transmission came through their headsets from the JOC, which was different from Bravo Company Flight Ops.

“Black Wolf Two Six, Warlock Zero One. How copy?”

Both Conway and Page knew this was Midas transmitting on the net. He ran the JOC, but in typical Army obfuscation his radio call sign was different from his Delta call sign.

“Warlock Zero One, copy. We are outbound to waypoint Alpha. ETA is one-nine mikes, over.”

“Roger, Two Six. Proceed to waypoint Golf and advise. At this point I do not have any targets for you, so I’ll need you to loiter on station, how copy?”

“Black Wolf Two Six copies all.”

Conway pushed the cyclic forward and pulled up the collective; the aircraft climbed up through the fog as it raced toward the Crimea.

“You don’t feel like skimming the trees in this soup?” Page asked jokingly.

“You know what they say. ‘Speed is life, but altitude is life insurance.’”

Their mission today was flexible. Their primary task was to collect battlefield intelligence for the force commander, but Conway knew at any moment Midas, or Warlock Zero One, or whatever the hell his name was, might order them to support one of the dozen or so U.S. and British special operations teams active in Operation Red Coal Carpet.

As they climbed out of the fog, seeing nothing but blue sky and green pastureland in the distance, a series of crackling transmissions came over their radios. Two of the Kiowas near the Chuhuiv Air Base had located targets moving through a paved road linking two small towns. The Warriors were in the process of lasing targets for a squadron of Mi-24 Hinds, and their transmissions made the two men in Black Wolf Two Six wish they were part of the action.

The bulk of the fighting so far had been in the provinces—called oblasts in Ukraine—of Donetsk and Luhansk, and the American helicopters were ordered to stay outside of this area, although some of the Delta Force teams were operating in Donetsk just to blunt the speed at which the Russians advanced.

—

M
ore than an hour into its flight, Black Wolf Two Six was flying low along the E50 highway east of the large industrial town of Dnipropetrovs’k. The highway was filled with civilian vehicles leaving Donetsk to the east; many, if not most, looked like they were full of personal belongings and valuables.

Conway spoke through his intercom: “Hey, Dre, I read that over eighty percent of the citizens around here are, to one degree or another, allied with Russia.”

“Something like that.”

“So why the hell is everybody making a run for it? They should be glad the Russians are coming, right?”

“They might be glad they are coming to liberate them, or whatever, but that doesn’t mean they want to be standing right there when it goes down. There’s a shit ton of fighting to be done before this thing is settled.”

Conway was about to respond when the JOC came over their headsets and directed them to a grid coordinate just fifteen minutes east of their position. Conway acknowledged and picked up speed and altitude, leaving his flyover of the thick traffic behind and heading over rolling forestland.

As they flew, Midas gave them more information.

“Black Wolf Two Six, Warlock Zero One, stand by for sitrep.” There was a brief pause, then Midas said, “Team Frito has eyes on two BM-30 emplacements digging in southeast of Mezhova. They have not been able to raise UDF assets to engage, and the red forces will be in range of major population centers within the next hour.”

Conway and Page both knew the BM-30 was a massive Russian missile launcher that fired up to a dozen 300-millimeter rockets at a time at a distance of up to fifty miles. Along with each one there would be several smaller support vehicles. It was a powerful and potent weapon, and the fact four of them had been amassed within range of the city of Dnipropetrovs’k did not say much for the future prospects of Ukrainian forces in and around Dnipropetrovs’k. There was a Ukrainian forward helo base as well as the largest military base in the oblast just on the far side of the city, and both of these locations would be perfect targets for the multi-rocket launchers.

Page took over the radio now to get more intel on the targets. “Can you advise other red assets at emplacement location?” Dre wanted to know if they would be up against troops, tanks, helicopters, or other means to shoot down the Kiowa.

“Warlock Zero One. AWACS advises no enemy air in area. Frito advises troop transport vehicles and multiple dismounts, but no confirmation of anti-air.”

“Roger that,” said Page, and he looked to Conway. “Dude, what are the chances the Russkis are going to set up two big, dumb, slow missile batteries without protecting them from air attack somehow?”

“No chance at all,” confirmed Conway. “We will engage from max standoff distance and minimize exposure.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Dre said, and he began making preps on his multifunction display sighting system for the engagement to come.

—

B
efore arriving on station five miles to the west of the BM-30 emplacement, Black Wolf Two Six was put in direct radio contact with Frito Actual, the leader of the 10th Special Forces Group team in the area. Page’s targeting computer showed him the location of the friendly, or “blue,” forces, and Frito gave him up-to-date intel on the threats in the area.

Page and Conway both looked over the moving map display when they were still twenty miles out, and Page scanned forward with his mast-mounted sight, looking for anything out of the ordinary. There were a few small villages and factories away from the city, but mostly the area was rolling forest. Page said, “I know Frito says we’re golden on this, but I think you want to come in low. Sneak in for a peek with the optics. See them before they see us.”

Conway said, “Roger that.”

Black Wolf Two Six descended to just forty feet above the treetops, and Conway dipped even lower as they crossed clearings and streams. Page’s stomach had long since grown accustomed to the vomit-inducing roller-coaster ride of nap-of-the-earth flight, but in the back of his mind every now and then he still thought Conway made some of his maneuvers for the sole purpose of fucking with his internal organs.

They passed a small town built around a large but deserted redbrick factory building. From the look of its three smokestacks on the roof, Conway thought the factory might have been some sort of smelting operation. He lowered to only twenty-five feet above a gravel road just behind the factory, positioning the three-story brick building between his aircraft and the target area, separated by nearly five miles of forests and farms.

Page was on the radio with team Frito, and he flipped back and forth between multiple views of the target area. He said, “I’m not an expert on the BM-30, but those fuckers look like they are ready to launch.”

Conway had been spending his time with his eyes outside the helicopter. There were enough gadgets and gizmos in the Warrior to where pilots ran the risk of pulling into a hover and then spending too much time absorbing information other than the environment around them.

But Conway was too experienced for that. He let Page do the prep for the attack while he watched the fields, roads, buildings, and wood line around them, knowing that hovering still here above this gravel road in a relatively soft-skinned helicopter meant it would take only a couple of Russians in a jeep with a machine gun to ruin this otherwise decent morning.

He glanced down at Page’s monitor and saw the Russian missile trucks. He was no expert, either, but they looked like they could start raining missiles down on Ukraine at any time.

Page switched his view to his own camera, located in the mast-mounted sight, the large pod above the main rotor assembly. The MMS was a ball with two prominent glass “eyes” in front, and Dre called the instrument “E.T.” The new version of the Warrior was coming online stateside right now, and Conway looked forward to getting his hands on one because of all the new developments in the aircraft. That said, the new model had its laser rangefinder and designator in a pod below the pilot’s feet, so the aircraft would have a new look. Eric had flown E.T. around for nearly four years, and he would miss the distinctive look the MMS gave his bird.

Right now they were behind the building, and Dre couldn’t see the target through his own camera.

He said, “All right, Eric. Let’s have us a look-see.”

Conway pulled the collective on his left, and the helicopter rose slowly in its hover. At fifty feet above the ground, the mast-mounted sight was above the roof of the brick building just forty yards ahead, peeking at the distant target.

When Page saw what he needed to see on his monitor, he said, “Good. Right there.”

Conway held the helo stationary.

Page saw the two targets in a pair of fields separated by a small river; a bridge connected them. Along with the two massive trucks, each with missile tubes pointed high in the air, there were another dozen or more trucks and armored personnel carriers.