Brad swore softly. “So when the FBI starts checking up on him…”
“It’ll look very likely that Daeniker was working for Mr. Martindale. Or the Polish government. Or both of them,” his father finished for him.
“Sucks when your enemy has a plan,” Macomber commented sourly. He shook his head. “Okay, then it’s basically down to just us and the Russians — and whoever’s unlucky enough to get caught between us.”
“Looks that way,” Patrick agreed.
“Sitting around here on our asses isn’t going to pull those enemy war robots off their next planned target,” Macomber said. “We’ve got Gryzlov’s attention now. So I figure we should get out there and wriggle around. Let’s make them come to us for a change.”
“Use your team as bait, you mean?” Martindale asked.
Macomber shrugged. “Well, yeah.”
“If we show ourselves openly, all we do is confirm all of Barbeau’s insinuations,” Brad pointed out, though he did so unwillingly. Everything told him they were running out of time and options. “We’d play right into her hands.”
His father nodded. “That might still be worth it, if it lured the Russians out into the open. But it won’t. For all his many sordid sins and faults, Gennadiy Gryzlov isn’t stupid. He won’t send his robots into an obvious trap… not unless the potential payoff is a lot higher than anything we can believably offer.”
“And maybe not even then,” Martindale commented. “Barbeau’s clearly had the same idea. She didn’t dump all of Sky Masters’ top engineers and scientists into that detention camp up in Idaho just for show. She’s using them as bait of her own.”
“For us, though,” Brad said. “Not for Gryzlov.” He shrugged. “She must have thought we’d try to rescue Boomer and the others on our own.”
“In this case, her motivations don’t matter,” Martindale said. “Nor does the worm on the hook have any say over which particular fish tries to swallow it. What matters is that Gryzlov has so far passed up what would be a golden opportunity to slaughter some of America’s topflight aircraft and weapons designers… because it’s so plainly a trap.”
“I do not believe that you and General McLanahan came all this way to recite yet another litany of what we cannot or must not do,” Nadia said evenly. Her eyes flashed a warning. “Or am I wrong about that?”
Patrick smiled. “You’re not wrong.” The exoskeleton supporting him whirred as he shrugged his shoulders. “Whack’s idea of setting a trap isn’t that far off base. It’s picking the spot that will be difficult. The only sure way to ambush Gryzlov’s robots is to figure out their next target in advance… in time to position your CIDs to nail them.”
Macomber snorted. “Hell, General, thanks for sharing that brilliant tactical insight. Got any others for us? Like ‘friendly fire, isn’t’? or ‘the easy way is always mined’?” He grunted when Nadia drove a sharp elbow into his side.
Brad hid a grin. Nadia’s tolerance for sarcasm, except for her own, was sometimes severely limited. He stepped between the two of them. “I think there’s a little more to my dad’s thinking than that, Whack.”
“There is.” Patrick nodded. “Or at least I hope so, anyway.” He looked at them all. “What we need to do is get inside Gryzlov’s mind. He may be orchestrating this war through that private mercenary outfit he’s created, but it’s still a one-man show. When it comes down to it, he has the final say on where those robots will strike next.”
“Maybe so. But I’ve been batting about point-zero-zero-zero when it comes to figuring out what that asshole plans,” Brad said unhappily. “I was the one who was sure he’d hit Sky Masters next, remember?” He knew his voice showed his frustration.
“And we all agreed with you,” Nadia reminded him. She took his hand in hers, offering what solace she could in front of the others. “It was a reasonable deduction.”
His father nodded sympathetically. “What Winston Churchill once said about Russia goes double for Gennadiy Gryzlov. ‘I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.’”
Nadia swung back to the older McLanahan. “But that is not the end of what Churchill said, is it?” she said suddenly.
“No, Major Rozek,” he agreed. “Though it is the part of the quote that most people remember, even if it was just the setup for the punch line. The rest goes like this: ‘But perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest.’”
Brad shrugged. “Sure, Dad. But Gryzlov sees anything that weakens the U.S. as being in Russia’s national interest. So that doesn’t narrow things down much.”
“Actually, it does,” Martindale said. “But only if you look beyond the purely military aspect of his operations.”
“Just fricking great. Here comes the lecture on politics,” Macomber said, rolling his eyes.
“I’ll try to make it painless, Colonel,” Martindale assured him dryly. “Even if doing so means using small words. The concept is fairly simple as it is. Gryzlov’s secret war has definitely damaged our country’s armed forces. But it also threatens Stacy Anne Barbeau’s reelection campaign by making her look weak and ineffectual. And that is very definitely not in Russia’s best interest.”
“Because if she loses, Gryzlov will face a much tougher American president,” Brad realized.
Martindale nodded. “I’ve talked to Governor Farrell several times now. His reputation as a militaristic hard-liner has been greatly exaggerated by the press. But there is no doubt that he holds a much more realistic view of Russia and its leaders than President Barbeau.”
Nadia looked at him. “But will she lose the election?”
“Nothing is certain in politics, Major. But I’ve watched a lot of campaigns in my life… and I know when the people on the inside are getting desperate. And that’s what I see happening to Stacy Anne’s outfit.” Martindale shook his head. “Take, for example, this phony story she’s peddling about a secret U.S. Special Operations Force that supposedly blasted the airport at Moab. Even if she gets a short-term boost in her poll numbers, it won’t last long. You can’t keep secrets like that, not in this day and age. Too many people know the truth. Before too long, someone inside the Pentagon or SOCOM itself is almost sure to leak that the story is false. And then, as soon as Grzylov’s robots launch another attack, she’ll end up worse off politically than she was before.”
“There’s also the factor that the Russians are running out of military and economic targets they can hit safely,” Patrick said. “Our base defenses have been hardened. Our warships are mostly at sea, out of reach now that you’ve blown their cruise-missile aircraft to bits. Plus, the Air Force has finally gotten smart. They’re flying surveillance drones over our defense plants and weapons labs.”
Nadia frowned. “Their war robots could still go after other civilian targets. Anything from shopping malls to major sporting events… and everything in between.”
“To create more terror?” Martindale asked. She nodded. “That is certainly possible. But again, attacks aimed at striking terror into the American people will only make Barbeau’s defeat in November more likely.”
“But do the Russians understand this?”
“In my experience,” Martindale replied, “the Russians have a very firm grasp of American politics, especially where it touches on their interests.” With a rueful look, he continued. “Certainly, Moscow’s higher echelons understand us a lot better than a great many people in Washington understand the Russians.”
Brad considered that. “So you think Gryzlov will go after a political target next.”