“OK,” Zubkhov said. “This will make you very drowsy.” He dialed up two units of the N-phenylpropionamide or NFEPP injection, did an air shot and then injected the rest into the man’s thigh.
“Man, that was one big needle,” the guy said through gritted teeth, an arm covering his eyes. “It better work.”
Zubkhov had little doubt it would work. NFEPP was a pH modified version of the tried and true anesthetic fentanyl, created to help overcome issues with addiction, but the effects of an overdose were identical. He had just given the man three times the recommended dose per kilo. As the man closed his eyes and sighed, it was just a question of how long until he either had a heart attack or just stopped breathing.
He sat back to watch.
SUPERIORITY
Bondarev paced the floor of his operations room at Lavrentiya airfield like a caged animal. The day’s operations had gone to plan, that wasn’t the problem. The problem was that as long as he was in command of this part of the air war, he was tethered to the ground. He preferred to lead from the air, but that wasn’t practical. Instead, he was here, barking orders and watching his men move icons around on the huge screens mounted on the walls.
Bomb damage and combat assessments of the opening battle the day before showed 24 US fighters destroyed on the ground and 11 in the air, for the loss of 13 of his own. Since being driven back to Oregon, Washington State and Idaho the day before, US forces had only engaged in squadron strength probing patrols at the southernmost part of the front, the extreme limit of their range. Their satellites and ground-based radar inside Alaska blinded, they were no doubt ruing the decision to abandon their own anti-satellite offensive program. It meant they needed to rely on vulnerable Airborne Control aircraft to fill the gap. In these contacts over the last 12 hours he had claimed five American aircraft destroyed for the loss of none of his own and had brought down one US Airborne Control aircraft that had wandered too far northeast trying to map the Russian presence over Alaska. Fixed and mobile US anti-air units inside Alaska were being dealt with by ground attack configured Okhotniks across the State as quickly as they appeared, but he had lost three of the drones to ground fire. His losses were within acceptable parameters and he was close to being able to demonstrate that he could repel any attempt to challenge the airspace over Alaska — the definition of air supremacy.
Despite Russian submarine and surface naval pickets 300 miles out from Saint Lawrence, the US still had formidable naval firepower and the ability to unleash a rain of cruise missiles on Saint Lawrence or Russian mainland targets like the Pacific Fleet base at Vladivostok or the Northern Fleet base at Sevoromorsk. It would be a logical response to their attacks on the US strategic air bases in Alaska, but beyond moving a carrier strike group from the Atlantic through the Panama Canal into the South Pacific the US naval response since the crippling of the USS Enterprise task force had been muted and it appeared to be trying to avoid a major naval confrontation. The US response would come, of that he was sure. The question was only how, and when.
What troubled him most in this respect were the aircraft from the Enterprise. Details weren’t clear, even to Bondarev, but Lukin had delivered on his promise that the Enterprise wouldn’t be a factor in the conflict. The carrier strike group had stopped dead in its tracks, and the US media was reporting that there had been fires reported on board the carrier, perhaps even a collision with an escort vessel. They were speculating that the carrier had been sabotaged, or had struck a mine, but Russia was denying any involvement. The carrier was being ignominiously towed back to port in San Diego.
The Enterprise task force might have been taken out of play, but its aircraft weren’t. Russian satellite surveillance showed more than 50 of the carrier’s aircraft had been flown off after it was put under tow. Bondarev wanted desperately to know where those aircraft were. His big fear was that Canada would give the US permission to use not just its airspace, but also its western Yukon airfields. They were mostly gravel, not paved, and couldn’t support intensive operations, but the navalized versions of the US F-35 and F-47Bs carried by the Enterprise had Short Take-Off Vertical Landing capabilities and may be able to operate out of Canadian bush or civilian airstrips or even paved highways if they needed to. If the Canadians had been reluctant to give the US permission to use their facilities, Bondarev was pretty sure that as longstanding members of NATO, they would sooner or later be compelled to.
He desperately wanted to know where those carrier aircraft were, and brightened as he saw the man he had tasked to find out, the GRU intelligence chief Arsharvin, walking quickly through the crowded operations room toward him.
“You have news I hope,” Bondarev said, as Arsharvin put a tablet down on the table in front of him and turned it on.
“Not good,” Arsharvin said. “Look for yourself.”
The screen showed a small table, listing the aircraft types which had been flown off the Enterprise, and how many of each type were estimated to have been re-positioned. Beside them was the base they had been flown to. Bondarev expected that column to show him the names of the now familiar Air Force stations in the US Northwest States.
“Naval Air Station Leemore?” he asked, looking up at Arsharvin. “Where is that?”
“Fresno, California,” Arsharvin said. “3,000 miles from Alaska.”
“What? The range of an F-35 is 1,500 miles. A Fantom is 1,800. Even with airborne refueling they can’t fight a war in Alaska out of Fresno, California!”
“No.”
“Are they under repair, or taking on ordnance?” It was all Bondarev could think of. Perhaps the Americans were worried their aircraft had been damaged by fire, or US logistics were taking time to get ordnance into place further north, so the Navy planes were having to repair and load up further south.
“Satellite intel shows them parked, with not much activity around them,” he said. “We thought it might be some interservice political problem preventing Navy aircraft using US Air Force bases in the north, but our human sources say that wouldn’t be it.” He pointed at the screen. “The US is keeping them back. And the US Navy is holding all of its visible assets south of our naval picket line. They might sneak a few submersibles through, but not enough to mount a significant counterattack in the Operations Area. My people think that can only mean one thing.”
“It’s a good sign,” Bondarev said hopefully. “They are leaving Alaska to its fate, as we hoped.”
“No,” Arsharvin said. He leaned forward and dropped his voice. “We think they could be preparing a tactical nuclear strike.”
“What? Why? We haven’t even moved on Nome yet,” Bondarev said.
“No, but the loss of their two key air bases in Alaska is a pretty obvious precursor.”
“The fact they are holding their air and sea assets in reserve is hardly proof they are preparing a nuclear strike. Are their ICBM silos or mobile units on alert?”
“No, but they don’t need to be. Our SOSUS line in the Bay of Finland picked up a trace today. Not definitive, but the acoustic signature fits with one of their new Columbia class boats.” He didn’t have to say more, his voice said it all. Bondarev had been friends with the man for many years, and this was the first time he had heard him sound truly frightened.
The Columbia class nuclear stealth submarine was the newest and quietest in the US fleet. Even bringing one close to the borders of Russia would have been regarded as an act of war in more peaceful times. If the US had managed to get one of their doomsday machines within a few minutes’ missile flight time of Saint Petersburg, it could either mean they were being prudent, or they were preparing for nuclear war.