Dunnavant pulled a photograph from his folder and handed it to the president, who examined a satellite image of two helicopter wrecks ablaze in a thick forest.
“Any survivors?” the president asked.
“Unknown,” Dunnavant said. “We slewed a satellite onto the area ten minutes after we lost contact with the Black Hawks. No one has emerged from the wreckage since then. If there were survivors, they had already departed the scene. However, there’s not much left of either helicopter. The odds of survival are low.”
40
KRASNODAR KRAI, RUSSIA
An hour earlier, Christine’s helicopter had plummeted toward the forest, its rapid descent ending with a crescendo of splintering tree branches, crumpling metal, and helicopter rotor blades disintegrating into pieces. The dreadful noises had lasted for only a few seconds, followed by silence.
Everything seemed to shift into slow motion after the crash. Christine surveyed the wreckage. What remained of the Black Hawk had come to rest tilted down thirty degrees and heavily to starboard. She was dangling from her seat, still strapped in. Kalinin was on the floor of the mangled cabin, wedged against the starboard bulkhead, his right foot jammed beneath a cargo seat. Fires burned in the cockpit, illuminating the two pilots sitting lifeless at their controls, crushed in the front of the crumpled helicopter. Of the two Delta Force soldiers remaining in the cabin, one was dead and the other, Captain Martin, was badly wounded.
Christine released her seat harness and fell onto the cabin floor, sliding toward Kalinin. He was conscious, but groggy. In the yellow glow from the cockpit fires, she checked him for injuries. He seemed okay except for his right foot, which was at an awkward angle. Kalinin slowly came to his senses, his eyes gaining clarity.
“Can you move your leg?” Christine asked.
Kalinin slid his right foot out from under the seat, wincing immediately. He had either a broken or badly sprained ankle, but otherwise seemed fine.
She turned her attention to Captain Martin, who was sitting on the deck, his back against a cockpit seat. A chunk of the helicopter fuselage protruded from his chest and he was bleeding heavily; his uniform was already saturated. Christine applied pressure to the wound with her hands, but the warm blood still oozed between her fingers. Her eyes searched the wreckage for something she could use as a wound compress after removing the fragment. She was no medic, however, and she worried that the bleeding would worsen if she removed it. Captain Martin deciphered her thoughts.
“Leave it in,” he said. “I’ll bleed out faster if you take it out. I’m not going to make it either way.” He coughed, spraying specks of blood onto Christine’s face as he winced. “Go,” he said. “It won’t be long before they get here.”
He pulled his pistol from its holster. The sight of Martin’s weapon spurred Christine to search for hers, and she spotted one of the two pistols she and Kalinin had carried aboard, along with one of the Russian cell phones. She retrieved the pistol and phone.
“Leave the phone,” Kalinin said as he pushed himself to a sitting position. “This mission was compromised. Andropov’s men either tapped into the conversation or traced the signal.”
Christine dropped the phone and went to assist him. “Can you walk?”
“Yes,” Kalinin said, “one way or another.”
He climbed to his feet, grimacing when he put weight on his right foot. “Let’s get to level ground,” he said.
Christine slid from the cabin, then helped Kalinin out. He stood on one leg, leaning against the helicopter as Christine found one of their backpacks and took a pistol and night vision goggles from the dead Delta Force soldier, handing the pistol to Kalinin. He gradually put weight on his right foot again. He could stand on his own, but the pain was evident on his face. When he took a step, however, he crumpled to the ground.
She helped him to his feet and he draped one arm across her shoulders. With her arm around his waist, they took a few gingerly steps. He was still in pain, but they could move. She turned to say good-bye to Captain Martin, but his eyes were closed, his face pale. The pistol was still in his hand, resting in his lap. With one final look at Martin and the burning wreckage, Christine headed into the forest, Kalinin limping beside her.
They’d been traveling through the forest for an hour now, their pace slowing as Christine grew tired. She was in excellent shape, but Kalinin leaned heavily on her as they walked. There were no trails to follow and the terrain was uneven, making the transit treacherous. They’d fallen three times already.
Not wanting to risk using her flashlight in the darkness, Christine had slipped the night vision goggles into place, searching for a suitable resting place along the way. As they pushed their way through the dense foliage, they halted abruptly, almost walking into a stack of decaying logs about ten feet high. They took a breather as Christine examined the obstacle in their path. It wasn’t a stack of logs; it was a wall. A log cabin wall. She leaned Kalinin up against it and worked her way around the perimeter, finding an opening. Peering inside, she confirmed her hunch.
They had stumbled into an abandoned cabin. The door and windows were missing and half of the roof was caved in. She retrieved the flashlight from her backpack, then lifted her night vision goggles and turned the light on, examining the interior. It was bare.
Christine figured this was as good a spot as any, and definitely better than resting against a tree in the open. The night chill was setting in and she was already cold, wearing only a skirt and thin blouse. Plus, the cabin was well-concealed within the overgrown forest. Ten feet to either side and they’d have passed by without noticing it.
She helped Kalinin into the cabin and leaned him against the wall, helping him to a sitting position. She settled beside him.
“Now what?” she asked.
“Communication,” Kalinin said. “You need to obtain a cell phone.”
“How do I do that?”
“There are several small towns in the area. I lost track of our location while the helicopter maneuvered, but we can’t be more than a few kilometers from the nearest one. In the morning, follow the slope until you reach the hilltop, then climb the tallest tree and look around. You can climb a tree, correct?”
“Of course I can climb a tree.”
“Once you spot a village, go there and fetch a phone.”
Christine said, “There’s an awful lot of you and not much we in this plan.”
“You will leave me here,” Kalinin said. “In the morning, it will be even more difficult for me to walk. Go to the nearest town and steal a cell phone. We can then call the American president without being tracked and make arrangements for another rescue.”
Christine mulled over Kalinin’s idea. She hadn’t come up with anything better. She turned to Kalinin, who had his eyes closed.
“Should we take turns on watch?”
Kalinin shook his head, his eyes still closed. “If they find us here, it will not matter.”
Christine turned off the flashlight and stared into the darkness, listening to the forest sounds. The cool night was even more noticeable now that they weren’t moving, and she slid sideways, beside Kalinin. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close.
41
MOSCOW, RUSSIA
Overlooking the Moskva River, the Main Building of the Ministry of Defense contains the supreme command and control center of Russia’s armed forces. With 930 miles of tunnels and communication conduits beneath a thick layer of reinforced concrete, the facility is designed to withstand a nuclear detonation. Deep beneath the protective concrete layer lies the three-level National Defense Control Center. The bottom floor of the control center contains over one hundred consoles arranged in seven rows. The two upper levels are open, framed by balcony stations looking down on the main floor and toward a one-hundred-foot-wide screen dominating the far wall.