Bent low to clear the trailer’s ceiling, he dropped down onto the ground and then straightened up to his robot’s full height. Immediately Dobrynin and the four other ex-Spetsnaz soldiers who served as the unit’s drivers and scouts backed away in fear. Baryshev accepted that as his due. They were right to be afraid. From the dawn of time, myths and legends had spoken of gods and demigods who walked the earth among mere humans — handing down judgment and dispensing vengeance as they saw fit. Now those myths had become reality.
He stepped aside, making room for Oleg Imrekov to bring his own machine out of the semitrailer they shared. Around him, the other four KVMs disembarked from their own transports. All three of the big trucks were parked along a dirt road that wound north from here, paralleling the flank of a lightly wooded rise. His night-vision sensors revealed a jumble of limestone and granite hills and ridges rising in all directions.
“Distance to primary target?” Baryshev queried the robot’s computer.
Straight-line distance is thirty-one hundred meters, it replied. Instantly, the computer updated his tactical display with a detailed topographic map. It incorporated the most recent satellite-derived data with new information obtained by Aristov and Larionov during their attempts to infiltrate through the enemy’s security perimeter. Icons representing known and suspected sentry posts and electronic surveillance gear speckled the map.
Whoever commanded Farrell’s guard force was clever, Baryshev admitted to himself. The American had deployed his limited resources to maximum effect — placing almost every possible avenue of approach to the governor’s vacation home under some form of observation. Aristov had been lucky indeed to find the solitary weak point in those defenses… and even then the gap was one only a highly trained operative like the former Spetsnaz officer could possibly exploit.
He frowned. Those sentries and sensors could not do anything to stop his planned assault, but they would make it impossible to achieve complete surprise. No doubt his KVMs could silence one or two of the guards posted in those hills without raising an alarm. But the security net was too tight. Sooner rather than later, the enemy would know his robots were on their way. And even a few minutes of warning would make the job of tracking down their intended victims — Farrell, Martindale, and McLanahan — that much more difficult and time-consuming. This would be especially true if Kurakin’s warning of a possible Iron Wolf CID operating in the area proved accurate. A single enemy combat robot would be no match for his machines, but destroying it would take time.
In the end, Baryshev thought, none of that should matter very much. The nearest American heavy reaction force was stationed at Fort Hood, more than 160 kilometers away. Even if they took off immediately, the AH-64D Apache Longbow gunships based there would take at least thirty minutes to arrive within striking range. Any tanks and infantry fighting vehicles ordered out would be hours behind the gunships. Still, why take unnecessary chances?
With that in mind, he discarded his preliminary plan, which had called for a simple head-on rush by all six KVMs. Quickly, he sketched out an alternate maneuver — one that proposed a converging assault on Farrell’s ranch house by three two-robot teams. Attacking nearly simultaneously from three separate directions should split the American defenses and render any escape attempt futile.
Baryshev’s computer highlighted one of the assault routes he’d selected in red. It was the one that envisioned two war machines swinging to the right around the southern edge of the ranch. Once in position, they would attack from the east while two more pairs of KVMs came storming in from the south and west. Early detection on this route is possible, it declared. Multiple communications satellite connections identified here. An icon appeared on his map, on the main north-south road through this area and just outside the ranch’s main gate.
“Identify those signals,” Baryshev ordered. “Correlate them with the most recent satellite photos.”
CNN, FOX, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, BBC… the computer reported, listing a slew of different media outlets from the United States and around the world. It pulled up a satellite photo showing a group of vans with antenna dishes in a tight-packed cluster on the shoulder of a narrow, two-lane road. A police car was parked just inside the gate, apparently keeping an eye on the press flock.
The media were camped out as close as they could get to the American presidential candidate’s doorstep, Baryshev realized — which in this case was nearly two kilometers away. After so many days stuck deep in this rural backwater, this band of reporters must be growing desperate for some dramatic bit of news to fill airtime.
He opened a secure channel to the other robots in his force. “Specter Lead to all Specter units. Attention to orders.” With a flick of one finger, he transmitted his revised attack plan to their computers. Imrekov, Zelin, and the rest radioed their acknowledgment. Their voices sounded avid, as though they were wolfhounds straining at the leash.
The Russian KVM commander bared his teeth in a malevolent grin. Just as in all the old stories of men and women who made deals with the devil, those journalists were about to have their deepest desires fulfilled… though not at all in the way they expected and only at a terrible price.
From his concealed position on the hillside above the road, Ian Schofield watched the Russian war machines split up and stride away into the darkness. The men who’d accompanied them were spreading out along the dirt road. His guess was that they were setting up a security perimeter around the three tractor-trailer trucks and a dark-colored sport utility vehicle. He zeroed in on one through the night scope attached to his M24A2 Remington sniper rifle. The Russian was armed with a submachine gun. He also wore body armor and a radio headset.
Seeing that, the Iron Wolf recon unit leader chewed at his lip, wishing he dared to transmit a quick warning to Andrew Davis and the rest of his team. But it was impossible. They had to assume the Russian combat robots had sensor capabilities that matched those of their own CIDs. If so, the enemy would pick up any transmission, no matter how short. Radioing in right now would be like sending up a flare. Not only would doing so give away his position, with fatal consequences for him personally, it would also blow this entire operation.
So instead, Schofield continued to lie low. He hoped like hell this scheme the McLanahans and Nadia Rozek had cooked up on the fly actually worked the way they hoped… because if it didn’t, an awful lot of good people were going to get killed. Of course, given the odds stacked up against them, that was a likely outcome no matter how things played out.
Karl Ericson tossed his cigarette butt down and ground it out under his heel. Then he refolded his arms and leaned back against the production truck. He narrowed his eyes against the glare of klieg lights, surveying the gaggle of reporters and cameramen milling around outside the big ornamental wrought-iron gate with undisguised boredom. National Cable News paid his salary as a broadcast engineer. That meant he was expected to be able to install, operate, and maintain all the video, sound, and satellite communications equipment needed by this particular television news crew. It didn’t mean he had to pretend that everything they did was important.
“Let’s go live to Governor John D. Farrell’s country estate, where our crackerjack reporter I. M. Sofullofshit will once again prattle on for thirty seconds about nothing at all,” he grumbled to Amy Maguire, his petite, red-haired sidekick. She was the production crew’s audio assistant.