“Seems like the bright boys and girls who put together my daily intelligence briefings missed a few things,” Farrell muttered, jotting down a reminder to himself to light a small fire under his national security staff about that. He looked up again. “Okay, shoot. What was so odd about the behavior of the Energia’s third stage?”
“First, that third-stage burn put it into a circular orbit tilted, or inclined, at roughly fifty-one point six degrees,” Patrick told him. “That’s virtually the same orbit used by the old International Space Station and by our own Armstrong Station before the Russians destroyed it. With one big difference.”
“Which is?”
“The Energia’s third stage climbed to four hundred miles above the surface before going into orbit,” Patrick explained. “That’s approximately one hundred and fifty miles higher than the normal operating altitude for either the ISS or Armstrong.” Armstrong Space Station was America’s military space station that was attacked and brought down by Russian spaceplanes a few years earlier.
“Got it.” Farrell nodded. “So then what?”
“Based on observations from our ground-based telescopes and from satellites, the stage — which must have been basically just a big empty fuel tank by then — spent the next several orbits using thrusters to carry out a set of complex maneuvers… a wide range of different pitches, yaws, and rolls… and all of them in rapid succession.” Patrick frowned while he worked through the probabilities. “I’m confident that what we witnessed were tests of the flight control software and maneuvering thrusters needed for computer-controlled orbital rendezvous and docking with other spacecraft.”
Martindale tossed in his own two cents. “That would be my bet, too. The Russians relied pretty heavily on automated systems to fly their old Soyuz and Progress capsules to the International Space Station. The odds are they’re planning to do the same thing with a new generation of spacecraft.”
Farrell looked from one man to the other with a puzzled frown of his own. “Okay, I must be missing something here, because none of this sounds off-kilter to me. What’s so all-fired strange about the Russians testing out their spacecraft maneuvering systems?”
“Nothing in and of itself. It’s the orbital altitude for those tests that bothers me,” Patrick explained. “Reaching a four-hundred-mile-high orbit requires a longer engine burn and consumes significantly more fuel. And every pound of fuel a rocket burns is a pound less of useful payload it can take into space. Why develop a powerful new space launch system like the Energia and then essentially end up devoting a sizable fraction of its payload capacity to extra fuel?”
“It sure sounds mighty inefficient,” Farrell said.
Patrick nodded. “It is inefficient. Which means the Russians have some compelling reason for practicing routine spacecraft maneuvers that far above the surface.” His exoskeleton whirred softly as he shrugged his shoulders again, in frustration this time. “But I just can’t put my finger on it. At least not yet.”
“This could be a defensive move,” Martindale reasoned out slowly. “Four hundred miles is beyond the effective range of our mobile Standard SM-3 antiballistic and antisatellite missiles, right? And while our ground-based missile defense interceptors at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California and Fort Drum in New York can boost that high, they’re optimized to engage targets coming in at suborbital speeds and on very different trajectories. Maybe Gryzlov wants to be sure we can’t easily shoot down whatever spacecraft he’s planning to send up.”
“Maybe so,” Patrick agreed. His mouth twisted in anger. “But by the same token, that orbit is also safe from Russia’s own S-500 SAMs and those MiG-31-lofted Wasp missiles he used to knock Armstrong Station out of the sky five years ago.” He exhaled sharply. “Considering what we owe him, that son of a bitch is probably right to be running scared.”
“What about the spaceplanes Sky Masters is reactivating on my orders?” Farrell asked suddenly. “Could the Russians see them as a threat? What’s their effective operational ceiling?”
Patrick stared at him for a long moment. Through the clear LEAF helmet, his face showed first stunned realization and then chagrin. “I think you just scored a bull’s-eye, Mr. President,” he said slowly. “Four hundred miles up is right on the outer edge of the orbits we can maneuver into with our S-planes… at least in their current configuration.” Looking even more concerned now, he shook his head. “I don’t believe that’s an accident. Whatever Gryzlov has planned, he’s making sure we can’t interfere.”
Nine
Tekhwerk, GmbH — a jointly owned German and Russian import-export company — ran its Moscow operations out of a large suite of offices on the forty-second floor of the ultramodern Evolution Tower. Its corporate owners viewed the skyscraper’s unique architecture, a DNA-like spiral created by a slight offset of each floor from the one below, as a valuable symbol of Tekhwerk’s business focus on advanced industrial equipment. Those who knew how much of its profit came from surreptitiously helping the Kremlin obtain sanctions-limited high technology saw the building’s twisting, corkscrew shape as an equally apt visual metaphor.
Crooked they might be, but it was just as clear that the import-export company’s senior managers worked long hours. Even this late in the evening, its offices were still brightly lit.
When his secretary came in, the big beefy man who called himself Klaus Wernicke looked up from the thick dossier he’d been studying. He peered at her over the edge of his reading glasses. “Yes, Oksana?”
“Fräulein Roth is here, Herr Wernicke,” the plump, middle-aged Russian woman said primly, with a hint of disapproval in her voice. In her view, corporate executives, especially those in accounting, should definitely not turn out to be young, good-looking redheads like this woman Erika Roth.
With a nod, Wernicke flipped the file closed. “Show her in, please.” He glanced at his watch. “And then you may as well go home. It’s very late already, and I expect it will take some hours for Fräulein Roth and me to finish going through the financial reports she’s brought from Berlin.”
“Very well, Herr Wernicke,” she said tightly. From the rigid set of her shoulders, it was clear that she suspected paperwork was the last thing on her employer’s mind. Turning on her heel, she pulled his office door open wider. “Herr Wernicke will see you now… Fräulein,” she snapped.
Wernicke hid a smile when his guest came in. Though the young woman was dressed demurely in dark gray wool slacks, a white-collared cotton shirt, and a dark blue double-button blazer, there was no denying that she was remarkably attractive. No doubt many men would have been tempted into sin and vice by her beauty just as his secretary prudishly imagined he was.
He waited impassively until the door closed behind her and then got up from behind his desk. For a big man, he moved with surprising ease. “Welcome back to Moscow, Sam.”
Amusement sparkled in Samantha Kerr’s bright blue eyes. “I don’t think the dragon guarding your gate likes me much, Marcus. Should I bring her chocolates next time?”
“It couldn’t hurt,” Marcus Cartwright said, with a thin smile of his own. “How was Berlin?”
“Damp, dreary, and cool when I passed through.” Sam shrugged. “Which was still better than my time in D.C. By the way, Mr. Martindale said to give you his regards.”