The Southern Military District had its headquarters in a five-story neoclassical building in downtown Rostov. If it weren’t for the iron rail fence and small white guard post blocking access to a door bearing the double-headed eagle emblem of Russia’s armed forces, passersby would ordinarily have thought it was just another luxury apartment building, art gallery, store, or bank.
No one could have made that mistake now.
Armed soldiers in camouflaged battle dress and body armor patrolled the neighboring streets. Police cars barricaded every major intersection. Staff officers streamed into the building in twos and threes, summoned back to duty by emergency phone calls to suburban homes and country dachas. One by one, lights flicked on behind tall, curtained windows on every floor.
Short and stocky, still built like the tank commander he had once been, Colonel General Vladislav Nikitin stormed into the crowded operations center in a foul temper. It was irritating enough that this sudden emergency had ruined a delightful romp with his newest mistress, a beautiful blond soap-opera actress. Arriving to find his staff scurrying around in what appeared at first glance to be total confusion was worse. Everywhere he turned, phones were ringing off the hook. Cigarettes smoldered in overflowing ashtrays. And throughout the room, groups of officers clustered around maps, gesturing wildly while they argued about which units should be deployed where.
Scowling, Nikitin shoved past them, ignoring their startled looks and frantic salutes. He found his chief of staff, Major General Maxim Borovkov, hunched over a map of his own. This one showed the entire region around Rostov, stretching from Ukraine and the Sea of Azov in the west, to Georgia and Azerbaijan in the south, and the Caspian Sea and Kazakhstan to the east. Even Borovkov, tall, wiry, and ordinarily as cool as ice, looked ruffled.
“How bad is this?” Nikitin demanded.
“Pretty bad,” his chief of staff admitted. He pointed to Bataysk. “Earlier this afternoon, a captain and sergeant of the Twenty-Second Guards Spetsnaz Brigade were murdered — gunned down inside the headquarters building there. Their bodies were discovered after a Ministry of Defense official reported receiving a strange, interrupted telephone call from this Captain Leonov. The captain was trying to check up on the identity of two strangers on base, one of whom claimed to be a colonel on the general staff.”
“Sukin syn! Son of a bitch,” Nikitin muttered. Donning his reading glasses, he glared down at the map. “So was this a terrorist attack? Or some sort of espionage operation that went wrong?”
Borovkov didn’t hesitate. “Probably the latter. The sentries at the gate confirm there were only two visitors during the time in question, a man and a woman. Both had what seemed valid identification papers. From what we can tell, these people drove straight to the Twenty-Second’s headquarters, spent roughly an hour inside, and then left. Searches haven’t turned up any evidence they planted explosives or other destructive devices, as one would expect terrorists to do.”
Nikitin nodded, thinking that over. The other man’s assessment made sense. But what in the hell could spies have been looking for at Bataysk? The Spetsnaz units based there hadn’t seen active service since the short, abortive war with Poland three years ago. Why target them now?
“The local police found the vehicle the attackers used, a GAZ Patriot SUV, abandoned several kilometers away,” Borovkov continued.
“So they’ve switched cars.”
“Quite probably,” Borovkov agreed. He shrugged. “Unfortunately, we don’t have any description of this other vehicle. The police haven’t yet been able to find any witnesses who saw the switch.”
“Better and better, Maxim,” Nikitin said acidly. He took off his reading glasses, closed his eyes for a moment, and pinched the bridge of his nose. He could feel a headache threatening to develop. “So, what is being done to find these enemy agents?”
“All airports, railway stations, bus terminals, and border control points are on high alert,” Borovkov reported. “We’ve also established roadblocks on all the major highways and secondary roads leading out of Bataysk and Rostov.”
“Who’s manning these roadblocks?”
“Mostly the local police,” Borovkov said. “I’ve ordered more troops flown in from the Seventh Guards Mountain Air Assault Division and the Fifty-Sixth Guards Airborne Brigade, but they won’t arrive for several more hours.”
Sourly, Nikitin nodded. Unfortunately, most of his active-duty army units were scattered widely across the vast Southern Military District — either on occupation duty in eastern Ukraine and the Crimea or guarding the border with Georgia and Azerbaijan. Aside from the 22nd Guards Spetsnaz Brigade itself, his immediately available forces were limited to a relative handful of military police troops and a few motor-rifle platoons detached from their parent units to act as guards for key installations in and around Rostov.
“Get those paratroops here as fast as possible,” he ordered. “I want a solid cordon around Rostov and Bataysk before dawn tomorrow. Let’s try to pin these spies close to the city. Then, if necessary, we can send in our soldiers to go house to house hunting them.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And tell the air defense forces I want every SAM regiment in this area at maximum readiness. Then contact the air base at Krymsk. I want some of our Su-27 fighters aloft as soon they can be armed, fueled, and made ready.”
Borovkov raised an eyebrow. “Do you think someone will try to fly the enemy agents out?”
Nikitin shrugged. “Hell if I know. But now that we know we have burglars prowling around, let’s not make the mistake of leaving the windows open.”
Beneath scattered clouds, isolated points of light marked the small towns and villages dotting a darkened landscape. This part of southern Russia was mostly farmland. Even with spring planting well under way, many fields still lay fallow. In the distance, off to the northeast, the city lights of Rostov-on-Don glowed pale yellow on the horizon.
With Major Nadia Rozek piloting from the right-hand seat, a specially modified PZL SW-4 light helicopter skimmed low over the ground, heading east at nearly one hundred knots. Called the Puszczyk, or Tawny Owl, by its Polish designers, this particular single-engine machine had been configured for covert missions deep in enemy territory by Scion technicians.
The helicopter’s fuselage and tail boom were covered with a special Israeli-invented radar-absorbent paint. This coating soaked up the electromagnetic energy from incoming radar waves and shunted most of it off as heat. Some energy would still get back to the emitting enemy radar, but only in greatly reduced and scattered form. And like most stealthy aircraft, a film of vapor-deposited gold covered the helicopter’s cockpit. Radar waves that would ordinarily penetrate the cockpit and reflect back off pilots, passengers, seats, and controls were deflected away by this ultrathin metal coating. To further reduce its radar signature, this PZL SW-4’s landing skids retracted tightly into what had once been a baggage compartment. Overall, the Sky Masters — modified helicopter had a radar cross section about that of a Hellfire missile, just a bit bigger than that of the U.S. Army’s canceled stealth RAH-66 Comanche helicopter.
The Scion-owned helicopter’s small size and ability to fly nap-of-the-earth, together with these modifications, made it difficult to detect — even by Russia’s most powerful air defense radars. A suite of advanced threat-warning sensors and defensive countermeasures systems further enhanced its abilities to undertake clandestine missions in hostile airspace.
Even so, Nadia Rozek was only too aware that penetrating this deep into Russian territory without being spotted was a lot like threading a needle. Wearing thick gloves. In the dark. At high speed. And with the ever-present risk of crashing into some of the electric power transmission lines and pylons strung across her flight path if her concentration wavered for even a fraction of a second.