No one answered his rhetorical question.
“Of course not,” he continued. “They set it off over an inhabited city — killing tens of thousands to make a point.” He smiled thinly. “Why should we fear to tread the same ground?”
Titeneva looked horrified.
“Oh, relax,” Gryzlov told her impatiently. “I am not contemplating an attack on a civilian city… yet.” He turned back to Leonov. “Instead, your cosmonauts aboard Mars One will attack a legitimate military target… the USS Ronald Reagan. After all, aircraft from that carrier were instrumental in your recent humiliation. Sinking it from orbit should prove to President Farrell the folly of continued resistance.”
Leonov felt his pulse speed up. Adrenaline flooded his system. This was the moment of maximum danger for him, and millions of years of evolution were now signaling the necessity of “fight or flight.” “Unfortunately, Mr. President,” he said quietly, “I must advise you that such an attack would almost certainly fail. Even at Mach twenty, a Rapira warhead falling from orbit takes around ninety-five seconds to reach its target.”
“So?” Gryzlov demanded.
“The ships of the American carrier strike group zigzag at irregular intervals as a matter of routine,” Leonov explained. “And under attack, they can maneuver even more violently and at higher speeds. A warhead aimed at the Reagan, or any of her escorts, could easily miss by a thousand meters or more.”
For a long moment, Gryzlov stared at him in brooding silence.
Leonov sensed the others around the table recoiling even farther into their seats. None of them would meet his eyes. Plainly, they expected, and dreaded, a temper tantrum by their leader that would end in his arrest and probable execution.
At last, Gryzlov’s thin, calculating smile returned. “You seem to have given this some thought, Leonov.”
“Yes, sir, I have,” he agreed calmly.
“Then do you have an alternative to offer me? Another military target whose destruction will make Farrell shit himself with fear?”
Leonov nodded. “I do.” He sent a series of black-and-white images from his tablet computer to the conference room’s large screen. “These pictures are being relayed from one of our reconnaissance satellites. The ship you see here is currently departing from the U.S. Navy base at Yokosuka, Japan.”
Gryzlov frowned. “If you can’t hit an aircraft carrier with a Rapira, how do you expect to succeed against another moving vessel?”
“Because this ship is steaming at a set speed and on a strictly prescribed course in one of the world’s busiest and most crowded shipping lanes,” Leonov said. “It cannot maneuver evasively without risking a fatal collision.” He tapped his tablet again. In response, text scrolled across the screen, identifying the U.S. Navy ship and its cargo.
“Ah, I see,” Gryzlov said in satisfaction. His mouth twisted into an exultant, vicious grin. “Yes, that is perfect, Mikhail! Let it be done.”
Colonel Vadim Strelkov looked across the command compartment. “Are we receiving good data, Georgy?”
Konnikov nodded. “Yes, sir. Our link to the Kondor satellite is solid.” He entered commands on his console. “Transferring tracking data to the Rapira fire-control computer now.”
“Tracking data received,” Major Viktor Filatyev announced over the intercom from his post in the space station’s aft weapons module. “The computer is calculating a firing solution.”
Seconds passed.
“I have a good solution,” Filatyev said. “Feeding it to Rapira One.” Moments later. “Rapira One has accepted the data. I am ready to launch the weapon.”
Strelkov turned his gaze to his own console. One of his displays showed a feed from one of their outside cameras. It was focused on the underside of the station’s central command module. “Very well, Major. Launch now.”
“Launching.”
On the colonel’s display, an armored hatch slid open. With a puff of gas, an elongated shape — the Rapira warhead with its attached rocket motor — drifted out into space, separating from Mars One at ten meters per second.
One minute later, now safely away from the Russian space platform, the rocket motor attached to the Rapira fired. It was aimed against the direction of orbit. One short burn slowed the weapon just enough to send it slanting down toward the earth on a precisely calculated vector.
As it fell out of orbit, maneuvering thrusters puffed, flipping the Rapira end over end, so that the warhead was nose first. Small explosive bolts popped, separating the rocket motor from the rest of the assembly. With its task complete, the little rocket engine drifted away… on course to burn up in reentry.
On its own now, the sleek, carefully shaped warhead crossed into the upper atmosphere and plunged onward, trailing a plume of white-hot plasma. As it fell, it tore a blinding streak of light across the night sky above the Pacific.
Ninety seconds later, the Rapira warhead slammed into the USNS Amelia Earhart at more than thirteen thousand miles per hour. Torn apart by a kinetic impact akin to more than two thousand tons of high explosive, the forty-thousand-ton naval stores ship suddenly vanished in an enormous ball of fire — obliterated by the sympathetic detonation of the hundreds of missiles and bombs in its cargo holds.
The huge white flash turned the night into day across Tokyo, just twenty-five miles to the north. Burning shards of metal rained down across the densely populated streets and crowded piers of Yokohama and Yokosuka — setting fires and damaging buildings and ships. More than one hundred American sailors on the Amelia Earhart and dozens of Japanese civilians on land were killed instantly. But the real death toll would rise for days, as those who were wounded by shrapnel or trapped amid the flames succumbed to their terrible injuries.
Forty
President John D. Farrell watched the secure video to Moscow go live, revealing Gennadiy Gryzlov seated at his own desk. His jaw tightened when he saw the sly, self-satisfied smile on the Russian leader’s chiseled face. “Now you listen here, you…”
“I do not have to listen to anything,” Gryzlov said bluntly. “This is not a conversation, Farrell. We have nothing to discuss.” He leaned forward. “I have been patient with you, but my patience is at an end. I will no longer tolerate foolishness.”
“Meaning what, exactly?” Farrell asked coldly.
“Let me be very clear, so that no more lives will be lost through your idiocy. Further American attacks against my country — in the air, on the ground, at sea, or in space — will be met with overwhelming and unstoppable missile strikes from orbit. Nothing will be safe. No American military base. No vital infrastructure.” Gryzlov’s voice hardened. “Not even the White House itself.” Then, before Farrell could reply, he reached out and cut the connection.
The screen went black.
“Well, that went well,” Kevin Martindale said quietly. The head of Scion had been seated off-camera during the brief call.
Farrell snorted. “About as well as could be expected.” He nodded toward the blank screen. “That Russian son of a bitch thinks he’s sitting in the catbird seat.”
“He’s not far wrong.”