THIRTY-EIGHT
Captain Ian Schofield and Sergeant Andrew Davis crouched in the cover provided by a thin clump of pine forest just west of the runway. From their concealed vantage point, they could see most of the airport buildings and infrastructure. The other members of his commando team, Mike Knapp, Karol Sikora, and Chris Walker, were deployed along the same belt of trees. The ground was too frozen to dig in, but fallen timber, rocks, and tree trunks offered modest protection. Like Davis, Walker and Knapp were Americans, veterans of the U.S. Special Forces before they joined Scion and Iron Wolf. Sikora was one of the Polish soldiers attached to the squadron.
The runway lights and beacons were lit, as were a number of hangars and other buildings. Airport workers bundled up in parkas were moving around the buildings and parked aviation fuel tankers.
“Wolf Six-Two, this is Wolf Three. It looks as though your guess was right. We see major activity here,” Schofield radioed. “There’s no scheduled flight this early in the morning, is there?”
“Negative on that, Three,” Major Nadia Rozek’s crisp, clear voice said in his earpiece. “Stand by.”
From beside him, Sergeant Davis said, “I’ve got movement at my twelve o’clock. Six hundred meters out and closing. Multiple armored vehicles arriving.”
Schofield swung his binoculars toward the indicated area. Three eight-wheeled BTR-82 armored personnel carriers came into view. Moving in column, they drove out onto the apron and then parked.
The side hatches on the middle troop carrier popped open. A squad of Russian soldiers dropped out onto the concrete. Two of them reached back in and roughly dragged Wayne Macomber outside, dumping him onto the ground like a sack of potatoes. Then they hauled him upright. The Iron Wolf major looked woozy. Dried blood streaked his bruised face and uniform. His hands were flexicuffed behind him.
The two other BTRs took up flanking positions about a hundred meters away on either flank. Turrets mounting their 30mm autocannons whined, rotating to cover the airport and its surroundings.
“Well, this is going to be a bit tricky,” Schofield murmured, still watching through his binoculars.
Davis snorted. “No shit, sir.” He peered through the scope of his M24E1 sniper rifle. “We can probably nail two or three of those guys before they figure out we’re shooting. But after that, all hell’s going to break loose.”
“Pechora Approach, this is Rossiya One-Zero-Zero, forty-eight kilometers out, level four thousand meters,” a Russian voice said in Nadia Rozek’s headset.
“Rossiya One-Zero-Zero, Pechora Approach,” another voice replied. “Turn right, heading one-two-five. Descend and maintain one thousand.”
She checked the flight indicator on her computer display and swung toward Brad. “There’s a Russian passenger jet, a Sukhoi Superjet, coming in. They’re going to land to the south. Which will take them right over our current position.”
He nodded. “That’s our guy.” He started the XCV-62’s engines and throttled up to full military power. “Let’s get this crate off the ground, pronto.”
The Ranger rolled out fast, bumping and rocking back across the clearing as it gained speed. Brad pulled off the ground at the first possible moment. Holding at less than two hundred feet, he throttled back again and banked into a long, slow turn, curving west over the Pechora River. In the sky off to the north, he could see the Russian airliner’s bright white anticollision strobes as it came around toward the airport.
“Pechora Tower, Rossiya One-Zero-Zero, eight kilometers out, requesting visual approach to runway one-six,” he heard the Russian pilot radio.
“Rossiya One-Zero-Zero, Pechora Tower, you are cleared to land,” the controller replied.
Nadia keyed her mic, speaking to Schofield. “Wolf Three, this is Wolf Six-Two. Action imminent. Stand by.” She leaned forward, bringing up a menu on one of her big multifunction displays. “Checking MALD Two. Programmed navigation course is set. All systems are green.”
“Copy that,” Brad said. He blinked away a droplet of sweat and throttled up just a tad, maintaining their airspeed as he tightened the turn. They were coming all the way back around to the east. The big Russian passenger jet appeared again, this time ahead of them, crossing from left to right as it descended toward the runway — flying low and slow with its landing gear down and locked.
Throttling back again, Brad swung onto a course that would intercept the Sukhoi Superjet. Their airspeed dropped to just a little over two hundred knots. “Range to target is three miles.” He steadied up, keeping the much bigger airliner centered in their cockpit windscreen. This was going to take some really careful timing… and a hell of a lot of luck. His eyes narrowed, judging Sukhoi’s rate of descent, and adjusting his own flight path to match. Down a little… up a little. He tweaked the Ranger’s stick a bit to the right and then back again. There. “Launch MALD!”
“Launching!” Nadia said. Her finger tapped a display.
Their last ADM-160B decoy dropped out of the Ranger’s internal bay. Its turbojet ignited. The MALD streaked straight toward the Russian passenger jet, arrowing ahead as its speed climbed toward six hundred knots.
Aboard the Sukhoi Superjet 100, Sergei Tarzarov tightened his seat belt, getting ready for what he knew from experience would be an unpleasantly rough landing. To avoid tipping anyone off about the secret work at Perun’s Aerie, Gryzlov had decided against reactivating the much bigger military airfield at Pechora Kamenka. That meant all air traffic had to funnel into this small civilian airport. Its runway was long enough to accommodate this jetliner, but only by the narrowest of margins. Which meant the pilot had to bring them down right at the threshold and then brake hard and fast.
He frowned, again pondering Gennadiy’s possible motives for sending him on the long flight to this dark and frozen wasteland. Retrieving a prisoner, even one so important, was a task better suited to a lower-ranking officer in the military or the security services. Was this some strange sign of the younger man’s trust in his chief of staff’s abilities? Or, perhaps more likely, was this a kind of rebuke for having doubted that the president’s convoluted plan to ambush an Iron Wolf attack force could ever work? As a means of putting Tarzarov on notice that Gryzlov now viewed him as only one more underling to dominate — rather than as someone whose advice he would occasionally heed?
Excited voices broke into Tarzarov’s increasingly gloomy thoughts. Several of the soldiers sent along to guard their Iron Wolf prisoner on the return trip to Moscow were eagerly peering out the windows, straining to see something in the surrounding darkness. His scowl deepened. Sending troops from the Kremlin Regiment was another misstep on the president’s part. They were parade-ground soldiers, not trained jailers. A handful of experienced FSB agents could have handled the task more efficiently… and certainly more discreetly.
Oh my God, he realized suddenly, Gryzlov must be planning a spectacle for public consumption. He would have television cameras waiting at Vnukovo when they returned — ready to broadcast images of crack uniformed Russian troops marching a bedraggled Iron Wolf “terrorist” off his own personal jetliner.
“Hey, what’s that?” he heard one of the young soldiers call out. “Some other plane?”