Then he just lay back again. No point sticking his head up and flagging to anyone he was still alive.
Actually it was quite nice down here out of the wind. He closed his eyes.
BERSERKER ALGORITHM
Bondarev knew it was going to be an interesting day when the Savoonga tower called him to let him know that General Vitaly Potemkin’s aircraft had entered Saint Lawrence airspace and would be landing in 15 minutes. Unannounced.
Potemkin was the commander of the Central Military District, 2nd Command of Airforce and Air Defense so a courtesy call on a 3rd Air Army unit was not part of his normal remit. Bondarev sincerely hoped it wasn’t the attack on Lavrentiya that had prompted the visit. Although it was the second time American aircraft had gotten through his defenses to hit a mainland Russian target, the actual damage caused by the American attack was inconsequential. Casualties had been light. Materiel losses were replaceable. The crippled Nebo unit had been restored to full capability within hours. It was a pinprick, nothing more.
He realized not everyone in the VVS or back in Moscow would see it that way. Bondarev’s Air Army network had told him the rumor was Potemkin was the one taking over after Lukin’s death. Potemkin had been a junior officer under his grandfather and reported directly to him at one point. But he had served almost his entire career within Russia’s borders and Bondarev knew almost nothing else about him. Once again he found himself walking a tightrope across possibly hostile seas. He could almost hear sharks snapping in dark waters beneath him.
Unlike Lukin, Potemkin did not fly himself around. As Bondarev waited for his Ilyushin 112 to taxi to a stop on the apron outside the old terminal building, he reflected it would be interesting to see who Potemkin had brought in the aircraft with him. A couple of staff lackeys would be normal — a GRU guards unit would not. He held his breath.
As the General and his retinue stepped out of the cabin and down the stairs, he saw someone he recognized. So, the indomitable intelligence officer, Lieutenant Ksenia Butyrskaya had survived the transition from Lukin to Potemkin. But why had he brought her? Bondarev stood with hands behind his back, and waited, his mind racing.
As he stood there, Arsharvin came panting up beside him. He looked at the man, busily adjusting his uniform and trying to catch his breath.
“You need to exercise more,” Bondarev told him, still watching the General dismount with assistance from a ground crew. “You’re getting fat.”
“Easy for you… to say… comrade Major-General,” Arsharvin said. “You aren’t answering your phone. I just sprinted… two kilometers.”
Bondarev patted his pocket; he hadn’t noticed the telephone ringing, but with the ever-present Saint Lawrence wind and the noise of aircraft out on the flight line, that wasn’t surprising. “Why?” he asked.
“We found where the Fantoms are launching from,” Arsharvin said. “Or actually I did, but I bet she’s going to try to take the credit.” He said pointing to Butyrskaya. “That’s why I wanted to get to you first…”
Butyrskaya reached him before the General did, and saluted, “Comrade Major-General,” she said. “I have a gift for you.”
Bunny had flown her remaining Fantom into the maw of the cave and splashed it down onto the Pond. They had secured it to a wrecked handrail and left it there for now. Recovery, refueling and rearming was a time-consuming chore that would have to wait. In the meantime, they had locked another Fantom onto the catapult and had another prepped, queued and ready to go. The BDA from Lavrentiya had showed significant damage to infrastructure, but the airfield was still in operation and they had made no discernible dent in Russian air strength. In a conventional war, it was a target they would be required to go back to again, and again, before it was considered Non Mission Capable — ideally before Russia got another Nemo command and control system in place.
But this was not a conventional war.
It had become clear to Rodriguez their job was only to keep the enemy off balance. To strike them where it hurt, and show them they were vulnerable. In the absence of a major US air counteroffensive, Bunny was providing a taste of their capabilities that should be giving Russian military and political commanders pause for thought. Rodriguez knew they wouldn’t be the only pressure point in play, but she was determined that they would give Russia more than just a headache.
Their new tasking order however, posed more than a few challenges. The first was that NCTAMS-A4 was down to eight fighter aircraft, not including the one floating out on the Pond, and they couldn’t afford to lose another. The second problem was the target they had been assigned.
“Savoonga? No problem,” Bunny said, looking at the intel they had been sent on her tablet. “OK, so the Russians have moved in some heavy anti-air. Another Nebo system, multiple close defense antimissile batteries.” She looked down at the map and printouts on the planning table in the trailer. “And sure, they have two fighter brigades, totaling 60 plus aircraft on station now. Round the clock CAPs protecting the airspace for 200 miles around. That’s all?” she asked ironically.
Rodriguez shoved another of the photos over toward her, “You forgot these.” It was a satellite photo of a formation of ships underway.
Bunny frowned, “Oh, right. Sure, that’s what, a Lider class destroyer?”
“Arrived off the Savoonga coast in the company of two older Sovremenny class destroyers yesterday.”
“S-500 missiles?” Bunny asked, checking what anti-air systems the destroyers were fielding.
Rodriguez read the briefing file, “56 S-500 cells on the Lider, 24 older SAM 7Cs each on the Sovremennys. You know, it’s like they don’t want visitors.”
“I know, right?” Bunny said, pulling at her lip thoughtfully. “I guess the David and Goliath trick won’t work again.”
“You can fool Ivan only once,” Rodriguez said. “Fuel and ordnance is mostly coming in on smaller transports, and there’s a big fuel freighter on the way from Anadyr, should arrive tomorrow.” Rodriguez didn’t mention it, but she could see from the source reporting on the intel that at least some of it was coming from a human source. They had a spy on the island feeding them real-time intel on airport traffic? Whoever it was, they had real cojones.
Bunny looked up, “Hit the fuel transports? All those CAPs they’re flying, that’s got to burn a ton of hydrogen. No fuel, no fly.”
“That tanker will basically be sailing under fighter and naval anti-air cover the whole way, we won’t get near it.”
“Try their own strategy on them? Hit them with a slew of cruise missiles, overwhelm the air defenses, we ride in on the slipstream while they’re shocked and confused?”
“I’m told we are on our own with this one, no available support assets.”
Bunny tapped a pen on her teeth. “Cool. Way I like it.” She moved some map printouts around like she was playing with a Rubik’s cube. A long time went past without anyone saying anything. Finally Bunny stepped back from the table, “Shit ma’am. There’s simply no way to get in there with two measly Fantoms. I got nothing.”
“Coffee,” Rodriguez said. “I’m buying. You keep thinking.”
Carl Williams was thinking too. Mostly, he was thinking about imminent global thermonuclear war. He was also thinking about a girl in Idaho called Kylee Lee who he had started building a real relationship with about two years ago. And how Kylee had asked him not to take the posting in Moscow, and to leave the NSA, and just come and do ‘some sort of IT stuff’ in Boise because, that’s what normal couples did. In Kylee’s world, normal couples didn’t just give up everything and move to China and then Russia because their country asked them to, even if they were one of the world’s leading experts in machine learning.