Without prompting, Kasperek’s wingman, Captain Tomasz Jagielski, piloting another Polish F-16, responded simply with “Two.” Tomasz was a young but experienced F-16 pilot. Last year, before Poland’s alliance with the United States collapsed, his skills and hard work were rewarded with a deployment to America’s ultrarealistic war games known the world over as Red Flag. Red Flag was designed to give aircrew members their first ten combat missions, considered vital to survival in real combat, and Jagielski took full advantage of this rare opportunity, minimizing the partying and maximizing his studying, and won awards for his performance during the war games.
As a good wingman, Tomasz stayed off the radio unless prompted by his leader — he knew well the wingman’s edict that he was expected to utter only three phrases without question: his place in the formation; the words “Lead, you’re on fire;” or while in the bar: “Lead, I’ll take the ugly one.” But now Kasperek thought it was getting too quiet, so he clicked the mic button and spoke: “Doing okay, Tomasz?”
“Roger that, sir,” Jagielski responded. Given his cue to speak, he went on: “Too bad it looks like the Russians aren’t going to come out to play tonight, though. I need another couple of kills to make ace.”
Smiling under his oxygen mask, Kasperek tugged his stick gently left, pulling back a bit at the same time. His Viper rolled into a gentle turn and climbed at 340 knots. Young for his rank, the Polish Air Force commanding officer made sure he rotated through regular patrol missions with all of the pilots in his squadron. Seeing at first hand how each of them flew and reacted was crucial to his leadership style. If their current cold war with Russia turned hot again, he needed to know exactly what he could expect from the men and women under his command.
Jagielski, for example, was unfailingly aggressive. If you wanted someone ready and willing to tangle with an enemy fighter force, even badly outnumbered, he was your guy. By the same token, it was sometimes necessary to ride herd on him, as the Americans would say, in those situations where the slightest wrong move could accidentally set off a shooting war.
Polish F-16 and MiG-29 fighters patrolling along the border with Russia’s Kaliningrad enclave often encountered Su-30s and Su-35s on the same kind of mission. Sometimes no more than a kilometer or two separated the rival forces. Flying in such close proximity to potential hostiles took nerves of steel. No matter how hard the Russians tried to provoke an incident — say by locking on their fire-control radars or maneuvering in a threatening manner — it was vital that Poland’s pilots refuse to take the bait. President Wilk’s orders were clear. If open hostilities began again, it was essential that Russia be seen as the aggressor.
Thankfully, tonight’s mission should be far less nail-biting, the colonel thought. He and Jaglieski were slated for a routine patrol along their country’s border with Belarus. For all practical purposes, the Belarussians were firmly under Moscow’s thumb. Russian troops operated freely within the country’s borders. So did FSB, SVR, and GRU spies. But last year’s destructive Iron Wolf CID raids had shown the Russians the folly of stationing combat aircraft so close to the frontier. They seemed content to maintain a close watch over their own airspace and that of occupied eastern Ukraine.
Unfortunately, Kasperek thought coldly, it was equally evident that the Russians had found other ways to make his country suffer. He glanced aft again, seeing the lights of Warsaw spread out in a glowing arc along the black ribbon of the Vistula River. Fires still burned in a few places near the city’s center, set by rioters in the aftermath of the bank system’s collapse.
Resolutely, he turned away. He and his pilots could do nothing to stop the cyberwar attacks aimed at Poland. Their sacred duty was to keep watch over her skies, standing ready in case Moscow’s conventional armed forces tried to take advantage of the political and economic chaos its computer hackers were creating.
Right now Pawel Kasperek and his wingman could see a huge expanse of their beloved country. At 5,000 meters, their visual horizon extended out almost 250 kilometers. Besides Warsaw, patches of warm yellow light marking cities and towns like Lublin, Białystok, Łódź, and Częstochowa were plainly visible. Thinner strings of light traced out Poland’s network of major highways and rail lines.
Abruptly, one of those bright blotches winked out, going black in an instant. Another followed seconds later. And then another.
“Jezus Chrystus, Tomasz,” Kasperek said into his mike. “Do you see what I’m seeing?”
By now, a vast stretch of the countryside below them had plunged into sudden, near-absolute darkness.
“I do,” Jaglieski radioed. His voice was tight. “The whole damned electrical grid may be going down.”
Piotr Wilk was sure he had never seen the commander of Poland’s national police force, General Inspector Marek Brzeziński, so weary. From the rumpled state of his blue-gray uniform and his disheveled white hair, it seemed likely that he’d been awake since the cyberwar attack on the banks occurred, or, at best, catnapping in his office.
Despite his obvious fatigue, however, there was no doubt that Brzeziński still had a firm grip on the situation. He turned to Wilk. “We are making progress in restoring order, Mr. President. Not as quickly as I would like, naturally. But progress, nonetheless.”
He gestured toward one of the two large maps covering one wall of the emergency command center. It showed the city streets of Warsaw. Colored overlays were pinned across the map, each marking a different trouble spot. Black X’s across many of them indicated places where police action already had quelled mobs or suppressed large-scale criminal activity like organized looting or arson. “Riot-control teams from the Preventative Police have now succeeded in regaining control over most areas of the capital. Hundreds of looters and hooligans are under arrest. Ongoing investigations by the Criminal Police should enable us to press charges against most of the worst offenders.”
“Good work, Marek,” Wilk said. He pointed to the other map, the one showing all of Poland. “And what about the rest of the country?”
“Even better,” Brzeziński said. Unconsciously, he tugged at his loosely knotted tie, straightening it. “The disturbances in most other cities and towns were on a much smaller scale than those we saw here.”
Wilk nodded his understanding. Warsaw lay at the center of much of Polish national life, of its economy, culture, and politics. Its growing wealth and prosperity drew many of the country’s best and brightest. Unhappily, that same prosperity also attracted a number of troublemakers, an ugly mix of anti-Semitic skinheads and far-left anarchists, along with the more commonplace thieves, rapists, and murderers. When Poland’s banks shut down and the streets filled with tens of thousands of fearful citizens, these thugs had seized the opportunity to run wild.
But now that the banks were beginning to reopen, however shakily and tentatively, the public unrest and panic should gradually subside. Without the cover provided by massive crowds of protestors, any skinheads, crooks, and anarchists still at large ought to hurriedly scuttle back to their squalid haunts.
Brzeziński agreed with his reasoning. “We hope to tamp down the last outbursts of violence and disorder by the morning, Mr. President,” he said. “Or by noon at the—”
All the lights suddenly snapped off.
For a brief moment, Wilk sat frozen in his seat. Then he pulled out his smartphone and tapped its flashlight app, a move imitated by others in the command center. Startled faces appeared in the different beams, seeming strangely disembodied in the sudden darkness.