Arctic Storm Rising
- Автор: Браун Дейл
- Серия: Nick Flynn #1
- Год: 2021
- Язык: английский
- Год: William Morrow
- ISBN: 9780063015050
- Жанр: Триллеры
Электронная книга - «Arctic Storm Rising». Краткое содержание книги:
One of the airmen manning their secure communications board turned toward him. “Sir? The Pentagon is on the line asking for you.”
Huber hid a grimace. Both NORAD headquarters and the Pentagon were receiving live feeds from the operations center here — which was normal, especially considering the extraordinarily high level of Russian air activity around Alaska’s perimeter. It had been a coin toss to guess which group of senior brass would be faster off the mark to horn in on this crisis situation. He took the phone. “Third Wing, Colonel Huber speaking.”
“Colonel?” a woman’s voice said in reply. “We’ve never met, but my name is Miranda Reynolds. I’m in charge of the CIA’s operations directorate.”
Huber felt his eyebrows go up. Of all the people he’d expected to be speaking to today, the chief of the CIA’s clandestine service definitely had not been on his list. “What can I do for you, Ms. Reynolds?” he asked cautiously, strongly suspecting that whatever it was, he wasn’t going to like it much. And the more he listened, the more he knew just how right he’d been.
Miranda Reynolds hung up the secure phone and looked around the table at the others present — who included Jonas Murphy, Bill Taylor, and the entire Joint Chiefs of Staff. “Well, the colonel bought it,” she said with a shrug. “He certainly wasn’t thrilled by the idea, but he’s okayed including members of our specialist go team in the search-and-rescue mission force. He thinks we want them along so they can comb through the wreckage of those Russian fighters and their reconnaissance plane.”
“Those downed aircraft might be all your people find,” General Frank Neary told her.
“That’s certainly possible,” Reynolds agreed coolly. “On the other hand, that Russian reconnaissance probe was pushed a lot harder than any of the others we’ve seen so far, wasn’t it?”
Neary and the others nodded somberly. Not only had the presence of Su-35s so far from the Russian mainland come as a very unwelcome surprise, but so had the willingness of those fighter pilots to mix it up so aggressively with the American aircraft sent to intercept them — aggression that had clearly led to disaster for both sides.
“My strong suspicion is that level of determination is itself evidence that Moscow knows something we don’t about the area their Tu-142 was searching,” Reynolds continued. “The Russians must have solid intelligence indicating their missing stealth bomber is hidden somewhere in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.”
From her position at the far end of the table, the Pentagon’s operations staff chief, Rear Admiral Kristin Chao, nodded. “I see your point. ANWR checks off all the boxes as a good place for this Colonel Petrov to conceal the PAK-DA prototype he stole.”
“Which is why I want our go team on the scene, ready to move in fast if it turns out I’m right,” Reynolds said firmly. “As bad as it was to suddenly lose all those aircraft, it may just have given us the chance we needed to beat Moscow to the prize.”
Neary stared coldly at her. “Maybe so, Ms. Reynolds. Assuming, of course, that we don’t find ourselves in a shooting war with the Russians over what just happened out there. In which case, there won’t be much of a prize left for your experts to pick over.”
Piotr Zhdanov listened to Lieutenant General Rogozin’s grim report in stony silence. Although controllers at air bases along the Arctic coast and eastern Siberia were still trying to raise Colonel Zinchuk’s Tu-142 and its two Su-35 fighter escorts by radio, there seemed little doubt that all three aircraft had crashed — and within just a few minutes of the colonel transmitting a coded phrase suggesting his crew might have found the PAK-DA stealth bomber’s hiding place.
“This tells all we need to know,” the Russian president said when Rogozin finished. “That sighting report was genuine. And now the Americans have the same information.”
Rogozin looked puzzled. “Sir?”
Zhdanov stubbed his cigarette out in irritation. “Come now, Yvgeny. It’s obvious, isn’t it? Why else would the Americans order their fighters to shoot down our planes?”
“Except that we are not yet certain of exactly what happened to our aircraft,” the general reminded him carefully.
Zhdanov raised an eyebrow. “The pilots you assigned to this mission had strict orders not to fire first, correct?”
“Of course, Mr. President,” Rogozin said.
“And were they reliable, disciplined officers?” the president asked pointedly.
Too late, Rogozin saw the trap into which he’d just walked. “Yes, sir,” he agreed reluctantly, obviously knowing there was only one acceptable answer. “Aggressive, of course, as the best fighter pilots must be. But Major Kuryokhin and Captain Troitsky were both loyal, trustworthy men.”
Zhdanov nodded in vindication. “There you are, then. The Americans had to have started this mess by firing on our planes. It’s the only logical conclusion. Washington wants to make sure it seizes Petrov and the PAK-DA bomber first.”
On his side of the conference table, Aleksandr Ivashin nodded vigorously. Ordinarily dour and undemonstrative, the head of the GRU suddenly appeared unusually animated. “I may be able to confirm your hypothesis, Mr. President.”
“How?”
“We’ve just received an emergency signal from one of our two-man, deep-cover Spetsnaz teams,” the spymaster said. Given enough time during any major crisis, it was Russian practice to deploy small covert commando units into rival nations — tiny groups of highly trained operatives who were expected to provide intelligence in the runup to open hostilities, and to conduct sabotage missions and targeted assassinations once war broke out. “These agents are stationed outside the large American military base near Anchorage, the one they call Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson. They’ve reported signs that the Americans are readying helicopters for immediate deployment to northern Alaska. And they believe this force includes elements of the CIA black ops team recently flown to the base.”
Zhdanov stared at him. “They’re sure of this?”
Ivashin nodded. “Their report indicates a high level of confidence in this assessment.”
“Can you contact this Spetsnaz team directly?” the president demanded. “Without wasting time going through cutouts or your other usual security procedures?”
A trace of worry appeared on the GRU director’s face. “Yes, but doing so would significantly increase the risk of American intelligence detecting their presence.”
“I don’t give a shit about the risks,” Zhdanov said coldly. “We’ve gone far beyond the point where individual lives matter.” He lit another cigarette and then stabbed it at Ivashin. “Your team is to take immediate, preemptive action against those American helicopters. I don’t care how they do it, but they are to stop this CIA operation before it gets off the ground. Is that clear?”
Ivashin’s mouth opened in surprise.
“I will not listen to any objections,” Zhdanov warned him. He glared around the table at his senior advisers and military commanders. “We have one overriding objective right now: the Americans must not be allowed to get their hands on our stealth bomber and its weapons payload. While I still want to avoid open war if at all possible, no one here can deny that this situation has already escalated dangerously, thanks to the Americans’ own warlike actions against our reconnaissance aircraft!”