“Then take a look at traffic reports from the Northern Railway toward Plesetsk, and the Trans-Siberian Railway toward Vostochny,” Sam said. “Over, say, the past week or ten days.”
Orlov raised an eyebrow. “You realize those are two of the busiest rail lines in the whole country? Over that kind of time frame, we’re talking about several hundred separate freight trains at a minimum. What am I supposed to look for?”
“Filter out everything carrying normal commercial freight,” Sam suggested. “And look for a train that’s moving through the system faster than normal. From what Mr. Martindale said, the Russians should be in a real hurry to get their replacement reactor to one of those two launch sites.”
“Can do.” The young man turned back to his computer and began entering commands — instructing his machine to conduct a search of Russian Railways’ signal and traffic logs within her suggested parameters. Within moments, crowded lines of text started scrolling across his screen.
Watching Orlov work, Sam stayed quiet. When it came to zeroing in on useful bits of intelligence in an ocean of otherwise irrelevant data, he was a wizard.
Minutes passed. At last, he swung back to her with a frustrated look. “I’ve got nothing. I mean, yeah, there are trains with some kind of defense-related cargo aboard heading to both Plesetsk and Vostochny from several of the cities with nuclear facilities, but none of them seem to have any kind of special priority.”
“Well, that’s… interesting,” Sam said slowly. Were they looking for a special reactor shipment that simply did not exist? Martindale’s guesses had seemed reasonable to her, but no one in the intelligence game could count on every stab in the dark striking home.
She had already started considering the wording of what she knew would be a very unwelcome negative report when another possibility struck her. What if the FSB was playing a double game here? There were two ways to hide something important from prying eyes. The first, represented by the added layer of cybersecurity for military-related freight, was to conceal it behind a screen of armed guards and traps. But there was another way, she realized. If you were bold enough, you could also hide a secret in plain sight — like planting a stolen diamond in a crystal chandelier.
Suddenly excited, Sam put a hand on Orlov’s shoulder. “Hold on a minute, Zach. Run that search again. Only this time, drop the filter for commercial freight.”
“Playing a hunch?”
She nodded.
While he worked his way through the much larger pool of railroad signals and traffic reports turned up by this new search, Sam mentally crossed her fingers. Her nerves felt stretched to the breaking point. Given the tight security Gryzlov had thrown around the whole Mars Project, this was their only possible way in. She and the rest of Cartwright’s Scion team had no other way to find out if the Russians really had lost the reactor slated for their Mars One space station… and if so, when its replacement might be launched.
“I’ll be damned,” Orlov said abruptly.
Startled, she leaned closer. “You found something?”
“Yeah,” he told her. “A coal train headed east out of Novosibirsk on the Trans-Siberian Railway.”
In and of itself, there was nothing mysterious about a coal train, Sam knew. There were several major mines in the Novosibirsk region. “So?”
Orlov grinned up at her. “Ever hear of a coal train that seems to have been awarded the highest possible priority — with all other traffic cleared out of its path? This thing hasn’t hit a red light since it left Novosibirsk. I mean, not one. Every signal it comes to is green.”
Got you, Sam thought triumphantly. Coal was a nonperishable bulk commodity. There was no reason to grant a genuine freight train loaded with coal any special traffic authorization. “Where is this train now?” she demanded.
“It just cleared the station at Ulan-Ude, south of Lake Baikal,” Orlov said. “And based on its average speed since departing Novosibirsk, I figure it’ll reach the Vostochny launch complex within the next forty-eight hours.”
Thirty-Three
The sleek, jet-black, batwinged XCV-62 Ranger swung back onto the runway and rolled slowly toward its takeoff position. Three smaller stealth aircraft — the two MQ-55 Coyotes and the EQ-55 Howler — taxied off the apron and turned into line behind it. Spooked by the shrill noise of ten turbofan engines spooling up, flocks of birds swirled up from the tundra and nearby shore and vanished in seconds, swallowed up in the low-lying dense fog that still blanketed the island.
Peter Vasey glanced across the cockpit at Nadia Rozek. “We’re ready for takeoff, on your order.”
She nodded and opened a communications window on her left-hand multifunction display. Quickly, she typed in a short message: WOLF SIX-TWO TO ALL EXTRACTION FORCE UNITS. ATTU GROUP IS DEPARTING NOW. The Ranger’s computer automatically encrypted, compressed, and then transmitted her signal via satellite uplink. It would be routed to the White House, Battle Mountain, and the USS Ronald Reagan carrier strike group, currently one hundred and sixty nautical miles southeast of Hokkaido, Japan. From now on, radio voice transmissions, even if encrypted, would be held to a minimum to further reduce the odds of detection.
Nadia felt keyed up and fully alert. This was the moment toward which all their planning over the past several days had been directed. Their call-sign change, back to Wolf Six-Two, was another symbol of imminent action. It was the same call sign she and Brad McLanahan had used for this same aircraft on other risky missions. Using it again was a pledge of her fidelity and determination to bring him safely out of Russia. “Z nim, albo wcale,” she murmured under her breath. “With him, or not at all.”
Leaving nothing to chance, she checked the flight status and navigation programs of the three Iron Wolf drones lined up on the runway behind them one last time. Rows of green indicators lit up across another of her displays. They were set.
“We are good to go,” Nadia told Vasey.
In answer, his hand advanced the throttles. With a steadily rising roar, the Ranger’s four jet engines ran up to full military power. Slowly at first and then with ever-increasing speed, the XCV-62 thundered down the runway. The airspeed indicator on his HUD flashed and he pulled back on the stick. “Vr… rotating,” he said calmly.
The Ranger soared off the ground and climbed into the fog. Its landing gear retracted and locked inside with a few muffled thumps.
Vasey tweaked his stick to the left, banking slightly to the southwest. The navigation cues on the HUD stabilized. They were on course. Satisfied, he throttled back a little and squeezed a paddle switch on the stick. “DTF engaged, set for two hundred feet, hard ride.”
With the terrain-following system in control, their aircraft descended again. It leveled off only two hundred feet above the fogbound sea. From now on, occasional activations of its radar altimeter would measure the distance between its belly and the waves below, confirming the information in the digital database.
From her position in the right-hand seat, Nadia focused on the three waiting Iron Wolf drones. In sequence, she activated their autonomous programs. One by one, they sped down the runway, lifted off, and turned southwest to join up with the Ranger. One of the Coyotes took station off the XCV-62’s starboard wing. The second slid into place off their port wing. The EQ-55 Howler, with its radars and jammers still inactive, brought up the rear.