Baryshev ordered his robot to its feet and dashed out of the woods — sprinting fast straight up the road. Smoke from the Tarrant County sheriff’s car that had been ripped apart by Imrekov’s shells curled across the scene, momentarily blotting out the carnage on his visual sensors.
His tactical display showed four more KVMs following him toward the brightly lit F-35 assembly plant up ahead. The icon representing Major Zelin’s machine moved at right angles, closing in on the National Guard armory he’d been ordered to destroy. Flashes lit the sky to the south as the former Su-34 pilot started firing antitank missiles into buildings at close range.
Baryshev broke past the shattered American roadblock’s jumble of burning vehicles and dead men and kept going. He bounded high in the air, clearing two fences topped with razor wire, and thudded down on a low berm in a spray of torn earth and grass. Still on the move, he slung his autocannon and rearmed with one of the three Israeli-made Spike antitank missiles he carried. Thanks to his neural interface, he was aware of everything going on in all directions. Behind him, the four other KVMs assigned to this part of the mission fanned out across the assembly-plant complex.
As he crested the shallow berm, he saw a startled security guard come running around the corner of a nearby building. The heavyset American skidded to a halt when he saw the tall gray war robot lunging toward him out of the darkness. His mouth fell open in horror. Without pausing, Baryshev swatted him away in a grisly fog of splintered bone and blood.
The Russian laughed aloud, seized suddenly by the feeling of being a god striding majestically through a sea of confusion and panic among mere mortals — dealing out death and destruction with every step. Through his radio links, he could hear Imrekov, Zelin, and the others echoing his jubilant shouts.
ATGM targets selected, his computer reported calmly. New aim points appeared before Baryshev’s eyes. Without thinking, he fired at the closest. The small missile streaked low across the ground, slammed into the long aircraft assembly building, and punched through its thin steel wall. The missile’s high-explosive fragmentation warhead exploded deep inside. Flames boiled back out through the ragged hole it had torn. Through his robot’s hyperacute audio pickups, he could hear screams and shrieks echoing from inside the building.
F-35 assembly station severely damaged, the KVM’s battle computer judged.
More explosions erupted down the length of the huge structure as the rest of his force opened fire using their own shoulder-launched antitank missiles. The high-pitched yells of the American technicians and engineers trapped inside amid a hail of fire and shrapnel were continuous now, creating an uncanny, discordant symphony of agony and terror that he found electrifying.
Baryshev dropped the smoking launch tube and yanked a fresh weapon from one of his weapons packs. Exultantly, he aimed and fired a second time. And then again, using his last missile.
Discarding the launch tube, he drew his autocannon. Loading preselected mix of armor-piercing and incendiary ammunition, the computer said calmly. Sighting along the torn and smoking building, he squeezed the trigger and fired repeatedly — sending 30mm round after round ripping through the battered structure.
WHANG. WHANG. WHANG. WHANG.
Razor-edged steel fragments whistled away through the night air. More flashes erupted inside the assembly plant, followed by billowing clouds of gray-and-black smoke. Hot spots bloomed in his thermal sensors, each showing a new fire ignited amid the heaps of debris strewn across a formerly pristine factory floor.
Baryshev’s autocannon fell silent. All ammunition expended, his computer reported. Mission damage parameters achieved. Recommend immediate tactical withdrawal.
For a split second, he felt the urge to press on, using his KVM’s powerful metal hands to tear open the F-35 assembly plant’s walls and continue his rampage. But then, reluctantly, he allowed reason to regain its grip over his mind. “Specter Lead to all Specter units,” he radioed. “It’s time to go. Withdraw to rally point Alpha. Repeat, head for rally point Alpha.”
One by one, the other pilots acknowledged. Baryshev could hear the strain in their voices, as if they, too, were fighting the temptation to override his orders and continue their killing spree. But like the disciplined warriors they were, they obeyed.
He took one last look at the shattered building. Flames crackled in dozens of places now, feeding on paint, splintered wood, and superheated carbon-fiber fragments. He grinned triumphantly. Between the evident damage to expensive, virtually irreplaceable machinery and the terrible losses they’d inflicted on the plant’s skilled workforce, it was clear that America’s F-35 stealth-fighter production line would be out of commission for many months.
Laughing again, Baryshev turned and sprinted away into the darkness.
By the time the Americans could organize any kind of effective pursuit or search, he and his robots would be safely hidden again… concealed in the Dallas FXR Trucking warehouse right under their noses. And then, once the heat died down, Aristov and his men could ferry them on to their next assigned objective.
Twenty-Five
National Security Adviser Edward Rauch tugged at his tie, loosening it while he clicked through to the next image in his situation update. His forehead and palms felt damp. Despite a climate-control system that continuously recirculated air scrubbed of all possible radioactive, chemical, or biological contaminants, the atmosphere in the lower-level briefing room tasted stale and felt unpleasantly warm. And while it might only be his imagination, he could swear that he could smell the stomach-churning traces of lubricating oils and acrid cleaning solvents wafting sporadically out of the bunker’s air vents.
Or, it might just be that I hate being the bearer of never-ending bad tidings, he thought gloomily, seeing the look of barely suppressed fury on President Stacy Anne Barbeau’s face. Like the Red Queen in Alice in Wonderland, she seemed on the verge of snarling, “Off with his head!” For the thousandth time since joining her administration, he wondered what had possessed him to yield so easily to ambition. It was one thing to write learned papers about the ins and outs of high-level statecraft and national security policy. It was quite another to learn, from harsh personal experience, that serving in the White House — at least under this president — meant stumbling through a maze of narrow political calculations and even more narrow-minded bureaucratic rivalries.
“Jesus,” Barbeau said softly, staring up at the picture he’d selected.
Taken only hours after the terrorist attack, it showed the interior of U.S. Air Force Plant 4. Scorched and melted heaps of wreckage were only barely recognizable as the remains of F-35 Lightning II fuselages, tail assemblies, and wings. The vast assembly floor was a jumble of mangled machinery, equipment hoists, ladders, and work platforms. Tarp-covered bodies were strewn in every direction.
With obvious difficulty, she turned her gaze away from the image of so much death and destruction. “Is this as bad as it looks?”
Rauch nodded. “Every single one of the sixteen F-35s that were being assembled is a total write-off. Even more wing and fuselage components that were waiting their turn on the line were destroyed. Of the aircraft assembly stations themselves, our best estimate is that more than half will have to be rebuilt from scratch. The rest suffered so much damage that it will take weeks, maybe months, before we can get them back into operation.”