Fortunately, given the orbital mechanics at work, the American missile defense sites could not conduct a coordinated attack in darkness for at least another nine days. And by that time, the replacement fusion reactor Colonel General Leonov had promised should be in orbit and mated with Mars One. Once that happened, nothing could touch them. Russia’s total domination of low Earth orbit would be assured.
President Farrell listened intently while Nadia Rozek outlined her proposed plan to snatch Brad McLanahan safely from Russian territory. Seen over the secure link to Battle Mountain, she looked exhausted, with dark shadows under her large blue-gray eyes. Despite her obvious fatigue, though, she sounded completely confident and fully in control of her faculties and emotions. He found that reassuring, because otherwise what she contemplated would have struck him as riding awfully close to the edge of crazy.
When she finished, he pursed his lips. “Let’s assume I sign off on all of this, Major. Can you guarantee me that this rescue operation of yours will succeed?”
“No, I cannot, Mr. President,” Nadia said frankly. “The challenges we face are enormous. And this plan is, of necessity, fairly complex — with many working parts. Should any of them go wrong… or if the Russians fail to react as I predict… we will fail.”
Farrell nodded. That pretty much squared with his own assessment. He looked closely at her. “Basically, you’re asking me to commit a substantial U.S. military force and run huge political and diplomatic risks — all in the hope of saving just one man. There’s a lot of folks out there — especially in Congress and the media — who might not see that as real sensible.”
“Yes, that is true,” she agreed. She offered him a wan smile. “But remember, I will still be risking more than you.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Oh? How’s that?”
“I will be gambling with my own life, Mr. President,” Nadia said quietly. “And that of the man I love.”
Damn, J.D., this lady sure knows how to square up and throw a punch, Farrell thought with admiration. And the best of it was that he could tell she meant every single word. There was no artifice in Nadia Rozek. He sat quietly for a moment. Then he nodded decisively. “You’ve made your point, Major. If you’re going all in, how can I do any less? I’ll issue the necessary orders to the commander of the Pacific Fleet. No doubt there’ll be some squawking from some of the Pentagon’s wet hens, but you pay that no mind. I’ll see to it that you get the help you need.”
“Thank you,” Nadia said simply. She looked down briefly, hiding her face from him.
She was probably concealing a few tears of relief, he judged. One thing he’d learned was that this young woman hated the thought of competing on anything but a level playing field. A lot of people would have gone straight for the emotional jugular — reminding him of how she’d lost her legs saving his miserable hide. Somehow, he doubted the idea of doing that had ever crossed her mind.
Farrell waited a few seconds, letting her recover, and then asked, “When do you figure you’ll be ready to kick this thing off?”
“Approximately seventy-two hours from now,” Nadia replied. “I wish it could be sooner, but I must contact my own government and request the use of some of its resources — those of the Iron Wolf Squadron. It will take time to assemble the necessary aircraft and munitions and transfer them here from Poland.”
“Seventy-two hours,” he said meditatively. “That’s three days.”
She nodded darkly. “Three days during which Brad must avoid detection and capture. Otherwise, everything we are doing will be in vain.”
Twenty-Nine
Through narrowed eyes, Gennadiy Gryzlov studied the faces of his closest military, intelligence, and foreign policy advisers. As usual, he could sense the aura of unease emanating from most of them. Cowards and do-nothing bureaucrats, he thought contemptuously. Left on their own, without the lash of his own fierce will to drive them, they were useless, a pack of timid, time-serving drones whose fear of the Americans was only slightly outweighed by their fear of him. Only Mikhail Leonov and Daria Titeneva showed any real courage… and even those two were still far too prone to see the possible dangers of any action more clearly than its potential rewards.
His lip curled in disgust. It might be time soon to purge most of these incompetents. If so, the ensuing trials, imprisonments, and executions should teach a salutary lesson to their successors: while he ruled this country, anyone who failed to act aggressively in Russia’s interests was as much a traitor as anyone who actively conspired with enemies of the state.
Gryzlov shrugged inwardly. Winnowing the chaff from his national security team could wait a while longer — at least until the strategic situation in outer space and on Earth was more settled. Thus far, at least, the Americans were reacting with surprising meekness to the ongoing destruction of their military space infrastructure. Apart from a single failed attempt to shoot down Mars One with a handful of missile defense interceptors, the United States had done nothing. Honestly, he had expected a much stronger response from Farrell after all the man’s superficial bluster and tough talk. Instead, the Texan appeared to be just as weak and ineffectual as his predecessor, Barbeau. In his own native idiom, he was “all hat and no cattle.”
Still, there were some Americans who had proved themselves to be very dangerous enemies all too often in the past — Martindale, McLanahan, and their Scion and Sky Masters mercenaries. He was sure they were plotting something. It was for that reason he’d demanded such close GRU surveillance of their spaceplane base at Battle Mountain. Unfortunately, he thought icily, as usual, poor, bumbling Viktor Kazyanov had little light to shed on the subject.
“Our intelligence agents in Nevada have been forced to go to ground,” the minister of state security admitted reluctantly. His face was pale. “Over the past forty-eight hours, security around Sky Masters facilities has been considerably strengthened. The Americans have established a strong cordon of armed corporate security guards, local and state police, and federal agents. According to the GRU, any further attempts to penetrate this cordon would only result in the exposure and capture of our officers.”
Gryzlov scowled. In and of itself, this heightened security was revealing. McLanahan and Russia’s other adversaries must be going crazy trying to come up with a way to attack Mars One with their remaining spaceplanes. He turned to Leonov. “Now that Kazyanov’s spies have proved worthless, what about our own reconnaissance satellites? Have they spotted any unusual activity at this base?”
“Not thus far,” Leonov said. “Our Razdan and Persona satellites have made several passes over the Battle Mountain area since we destroyed the S-19 Midnight. None of their pictures show any of the remaining spaceplanes. This suggests Sky Masters has moved them from the flight line back into hangars to hide them from our view.”
“But you don’t have continuous coverage of this area,” Gryzlov pointed out sharply. “Those spaceplanes could be landing and taking off undetected whenever our spy satellites aren’t within range.”
Leonov nodded. “That is possible. But if so, they are not going into space. Our EKS ballistic-missile warning satellites will pick up any launch headed outside the earth’s atmosphere.”