Ghosts of War (14 page)

K
irill snatched the binoculars and said, “Christ, man. Is it a Buk launcher or not? That's the only question.”

Oleg said, “It's a Buk, but it doesn't have the Snow Drift radar array vehicle. I can't shoot a plane without the radar assembly that controls it. It's just a missile launcher. We can't identify and hit what we want without the radar.”

Kirill said, “Bullshit. How was that plane shot down earlier? The civilian aircraft?”

Oleg sighed and said, “Each launcher has an internal radar that can be used for targeting, but it's imprecise. It can guide the missile, but can't identify the target. You want to blow another civilian aircraft out of the air? We need to find a group of launchers with the control vehicle. The Snow Drift radar. It's something that can precisely define friend or foe. Something that will prevent us from killing another damn plane full of civilians.”

Kirill dropped the binos and said, “We can't keep driving around the countryside. We have to kill a NATO aircraft, period. Is there some other way to do it?”

Oleg, looking a little sick, said, “Maybe. They fly overhead all the time, but they don't fly alone. If the radar shows a group of planes, odds are it's a NATO flight. Civilian aircraft don't fly in formation.”

Kirill said, “Perfect. Boys, get your coats on.”

The men put on the trappings of the Russian air force and Oleg said, “What are we going to do if they don't believe we're Russian military? How are we going to get them to allow us in the Buk?”

Kirill pressed the gas pedal and said, “They aren't going to question anything. Because they'll be dead.”

They bounced down the rutted dirt road, clearing the tree line and entering the field, the Buk M1 launcher system sitting idle, four missiles aimed at the sky, the cab pointed at a gap in the trees for rapid escape once the missiles were fired.

They closed within a hundred meters and saw no sign of life. Oleg said, “Maybe it's empty.” No sooner had the words come out of his mouth when a bearded man wearing a ragtag uniform exited the Buk with an AK-47. He held it at the ready, not threatening, but definitely not slung.

Kirill stopped the vehicle twenty feet away, then exited. Speaking Russian he said, “Evening, comrade. How goes it?”

The man said, “Fine.” He pointed the AK and said, “Who the fuck are you?”

“Nobody of consequence.” Kirill held his own AKM in a nonthreatening manner as the rest of his men exited the vehicle. He continued, “We, of course, were never here. We're simply checking the maintenance of the launchers in your area.”

The man smiled and said, “We haven't had anyone in this sector in weeks, and even then, I've never seen anyone wearing Russian uniforms.”

Having fought inside Crimea as a “volunteer,” Kirill knew all too well how the Russians operated, so much so that he suspected some of his Night Wolves compatriots during that time were, in fact, Spetsnaz—Russian Special Forces. He'd fought with the men whom the press would later label the “Little Green Men”—Russian specialists in the dark arts who eschewed wearing a uniform to project the image of a spontaneous uprising. In this case, wearing a uniform was necessary to defuse the rebels manning the Buk, even if it looked odd.

Kirill said, “Times are changing. Especially here, where the revolution is complete.”

The launcher was parked in the Donetsk Oblast, the heart of the
so-called spontaneous uprising, and Kirill knew the man would believe what he said. There was no longer any fighting here, the terrain solidly held by pro-Russian separatists. The man turned to the vehicle and shouted. Two other men exited, one wearing a leather helmet and headset, both looking at the crew of Russian air force in confusion.

Kirill said, “What are your mission parameters?”

The man with the helmet said, “We wait. We've been waiting forever, since the ceasefire. If they bomb us, we'll get a call, and we'll defend against it.”

“How do you know the launcher will work? You have no radar array.”

“It works. We track aircraft all day long.”

Kirill said, “Good, good. All for the motherland, right?”

The helmet smiled, and Kirill shot all three, stitching them from the hip, his AKM held low, emptying an entire magazine.

The men with him were startled by the fire, jerking back at the explosion of rounds. As quickly as it had started, it was over. The silence stretched out, Kirill's weapon smoking.

Oleg was the first to recover. He said, “What the fuck are you thinking?”

“Get inside. Start working the launcher. Find us a target.”

Oleg stomped in front of him, waving his arms at the carnage. “Was this necessary? Did you have to kill them? They're us, for God's sake. They're with us.”

Kirill changed magazines and raised the barrel. He said, “Get inside.”

Oleg stood still for a moment, then turned toward the launcher. Misha went to the dead men and began going through their pockets, looking for loot. He was followed by the other two, until Kirill said, “Leave them alone. This wasn't for profit.”

They backed off, like puppies scolded for chewing a shoe. From inside the launcher, Oleg shouted, “I have something.”

Kirill rushed forward, looking into the cramped cockpit of the Buk. He saw nothing but green screens and switches. He said, “What?”

Oleg pointed at a round radar display, saying, “Three aircraft flying together. They have to be a NATO patrol.”

“Are you sure?”

“Well, they're flying much higher than a civilian aircraft. They're at 41,000 feet. And they're flying together.”

“Can you reach them?”

“Oh yeah. This system was designed with the SR-71 in mind, the American spy plane. It can go as high as 70,000 feet. To the edge of space at twice the speed of sound.”

Kirill nodded, seeing the small blips on the screen, realizing each represented a human flying an aircraft that was about to be obliterated. He said, “Can they defeat the missiles?”

“Maybe. Maybe they can defeat one. But they can't defeat all four. The missiles don't have to hit. All they have to do is get close. They explode when in proximity, throwing out shrapnel, and those planes don't have enough defenses to stop all of them if we fire in sequence.”

Kirill said, “And we only need to hit one. Fire.”

“I have to have help. Swiftly, because they're moving at top speed. Once I painted them, they knew they were being tracked.”

Kirill yelled outside for Misha, and within two minutes, Oleg had instructed him on the sequence required. Both looked at Kirill. He said again, “Fire. Kill those bastards.”

Oleg initiated the warm-up of the missiles, selecting the middle dash and locking the target. He shouted at Misha, and the man began flipping switches and punching buttons, synchronizing the radar with the missiles. Oleg heard a beep, telling him that the missiles had the information, and his hand hovered for one second before stabbing a large red button.

The tractor shook with sound and fury, and a scream pierced the air.

Kirill turned to leap out and Oleg grabbed his arm, saying, “No! Whoever it is was caught in the blast of the missile. Wait.”

Three seconds later, the second missile left. Three more, and another one launched. Twelve seconds after Oleg had pressed the button, the final missile shot into space.

Kirill jumped outside and saw one of his men at the rear of the vehicle, burned beyond recognition, his arms locked in a rictus crucifixion. Another, Alik, was farther away, in the front of the vehicle, crouched down with his hands on his ears.

Kirill looked upward, seeing the contrails of the four missiles stretching out into the bright blue sky, like the most expensive fireworks on earth. He saw a pulse of light, then two more.

He whispered, “For the motherland.”

K
urt Hale watched Vice President Hannister go through his document line by line. He glanced at George Wolffe, who only shrugged—
too late now
.

It was the official roll-up of the Greece investigation, encapsulating the fact that the Taskforce was in the clear and could begin operating again—along with a little bit of information he'd hoped would be overlooked. Back when it was only the national security advisor reading it.

With the flashpoint of Belarus, he'd known that Alexander Palmer would be preoccupied, and that he'd take the report and file it with a hundred others from a thousand different feeds that just weren't that important right now. Information he had to take in, but that really belonged in yesterday's news cycle. Because of the classification of Project Prometheus, all reports were delivered on hard copy, so Kurt had delivered the final one himself.

He expected to drop it off, maybe have a word or two, and be on his way. And that would have happened, if Vice President Hannister hadn't appeared in Palmer's office, just down the corridor from the Oval Office.

He'd popped in, getting halfway through a question before he'd noticed Kurt, and had paused. He'd asked what they were doing in the White House, as if Kurt and George were supposed to be operational somewhere. Kurt told him, and he'd asked for the report. Palmer had given it to him, and the vice president had asked all in the room to follow him to his office down the hall.

Now Kurt and George waited on him to finish, with Alexander Palmer fidgeting on the opposite couch, wanting to get back to work.

Kurt understood why. Palmer was President Warren's right-hand man. Every president had a different take on who was influential in their administration, with some leaning on their chief of staff and others looking to their vice president. President Warren listened to Alexander Palmer, and with Russia threatening to upset the current world order, Palmer had little time to waste.

As much as he wanted to tell Hannister he had to leave, he couldn't. Hannister was, at the end of the day, the vice president. Even if he was completely out of his depth.

Hannister had been put on the ticket for domestic reasons. A former professor of economics at Brown, he was an expert at a plethora of things that mattered little when the guns began to fire. An analytical man who would be happy studying unemployment figures and taxation rates for decades, but when it came to national security, he was lost. And he would be the first to say so. But the man was scary smart, and could digest prodigious amounts of information. Which meant he'd probably find the hidden Easter egg Kurt had hoped Palmer would miss. But then again, maybe he'd get lucky.

Hannister did not.

He looked up from the report and said, “You sent a Taskforce member over to Slovakia?”

Palmer quit fidgeting, looking at Kurt.

Shit. Here we go.

Kurt said, “Well, yes and no. Currently, there is no Taskforce, and Knuckles—the man you're seeing there—was asked to help out Pike on a Grolier Recovery Services operation. He just asked if he could take some leave and help, because I require the men to get permission for accountability purposes. I put it in the report because, yes, he's gone, but it's not Project Prometheus. I was just covering the bases, making sure everyone is informed.”

Palmer said, “Wait, wait, what the hell is Pike doing? That's never been reported.”

Kurt said, “Pike's a civilian. When you put the Taskforce on ice, I couldn't tell him not to make a living. What he's doing is completely outside the scope of Prometheus. Knuckles is active duty. I felt it prudent to inform you.”

Hannister said, “Does this have anything to do with Belarus?”

Kurt said, “Of course not. Jesus, come on, sir, I wouldn't do something like that.”

Palmer said, “Why Slovakia? What's going on?”

“They were hired to recover an ancient Torah taken by the Nazis in World War Two. It's right up the GRS playbook. They've got a handle on it, but needed some extra eyes. That's all. Knuckles was sitting around here waiting on you guys to make a decision. He asked if he could go help, and I said yes.”

Hannister said, “Because you feel so strongly about recovering this Torah?”

Kurt said nothing, looking at George. Trying to find an answer that made sense in the room. George provided it.

“No, sir. Because Kurt feels strongly about the problems occurring overseas.”

George turned from the vice president to Palmer and said, “You've frozen the Taskforce out of everything, and yet the world continues turning. Kurt just wanted to place some eyes in the region. In case.”

“In case of what?”

“In case they can be useful.”

“You can't do that without Oversight Council approval! Jesus, you're freelancing Taskforce assets.”

Kurt said, “Freelancing ‘assets'? Listen to what you're saying. Knuckles is a man. Pike is a man. They aren't ‘assets,' and they aren't doing anything on behalf of the Taskforce. They're doing their own thing, but they may be useful over there.”

Palmer started to say something else, but was cut off by Hannister raising a hand. He said, “You sent them, and I trust that. That's not why I asked you to come in here. Can I ask you a question, away from my position as vice president? Man to man?”

Nobody said a word. Kurt wondered where the line of questioning was going. He nodded.

Hannister said, “President Warren bounces things off you from time to time, doesn't he? Outside the Oversight Council? I've seen you and him alone.”

The statement was true, but it had never been formally articulated by anyone. Kurt had a unique relationship with President Warren, having come up with the idea of the Taskforce to begin with, and convincing the then presidential candidate that it was a necessary thing. Outside the political system, even outside the politics of the military, President Warren had taken to asking Kurt for his unvarnished views. In truth, Kurt had never been comfortable with the relationship.

Not sure what to say, Kurt simply responded, “He's asked my opinion once or twice, yes. Just as I'm sure you ask others who aren't officially part of your staff.”

“President Warren is flying to Moscow as we speak. Is something going on that I need to be aware of?”

“No. Absolutely not. Please. We live in a world of secrets, but let's not make this into something it's not. I'm not running any operations off the books, away from the Oversight Council.”

Hannister took that in, then said, “Okay. Can I ask your opinion? Get your unbiased view, away from the politics?”

Kurt looked at George, now in unfamiliar territory and not liking the terrain. He said, “Sure. Of course, sir.”

Before the question could be asked, the vice president's phone rang. He looked at the digital display and Kurt saw his eyes widen slightly. He picked it up.

After saying hello, Kurt heard two sentences: “What? Are you sure?” The vice president listened for close to a minute, then said, “Who did it?”

He hung up the phone, staring at the wall in disbelief. After a few moments of uncomfortable silence, Alexander Palmer said, “Sir?”

The word snapped Hannister out of his daze. He looked at the men on the couches and said, “Air Force One was just blown out of the sky.”

He took a breath and said, “President Warren is dead.”