He shook his head. The willingness to fight a slow war of attrition seemed out of character for Russia’s aggressive leader. On the other hand, it was a classic mistake to assume that an opponent could not learn from his earlier mistakes.
Which led directly to another piece of the puzzle that he could not make fit. Crazy or not, there was no way that Gryzlov could hope to skate away from responsibility for any attacks launched by Russian-made aircraft and missiles operating out of Russian-controlled air bases. So why was this RKU outfit recruiting veteran fighter and bomber pilots?
Fourteen
Yuri Annenkov stood up to greet the two men who entered his sparsely furnished office at one end of the trailer. Despite their business suits, neither of them could really be mistaken for a midlevel corporate executive, no matter what it said on their false passports. While only of average height, both were remarkably fit and moved with the easy assurance of men used to handling advanced aircraft under high-Gs in combat conditions.
“How was your flight?” he asked.
“Uneventful from a security standpoint, but damned noisy,” Colonel Ruslan Baryshev, the older of the two, answered. His thin-lipped smile stopped well short of his pale blue eyes. “Some fat American woman’s brat screamed all the way from Toronto to Salt Lake City.”
Annenkov winced in sympathy. No real pilot, especially not a former Su-50 stealth-fighter squadron commander like Baryshev, could enjoy being forced to travel as a mere passenger at the mercy of some other flier. Doing so in the sort of dingy, jam-packed horror shows that passed for commercial airliners these days must have seemed like a foretaste of hell itself.
Baryshev nodded toward his companion. “This is my wingman, Captain Oleg Imrekov.”
“Technically, I’m your former wingman, sir. And no longer exactly a captain,” the younger man said with a more genuine smile. He sketched a salute to Annenkov. “KVM Senior Pilot Imrekov reporting for duty.”
Baryshev shook his head in mock despair. “And thus you see how discipline dies in the glorious private sector, Yuri. Once I could have had this young whelp shot for disrespect. Now the best I can do is contemplate giving him a bad performance review.”
Annenkov laughed. He waved them into the two chairs in front of his desk and sat down himself. “The rest of your lads arrived yesterday, Ruslan. For now, they’re bunking with my air and ground crews.”
“Any complaints?”
“Major Zelin did bitch a little about the selection of drinks at the O Club,” Annenkov allowed.
Baryshev raised an eyebrow. “You have an officers’ club here?”
“Only if you count a folding table with a bottle of vodka and a supply of disposable plastic cups as a club.”
“Ah, luxury,” Imrekov said. “Back at our old fighter base at Syktyvkar, we had to share our cups. And they were made out of paper. Cheap paper.”
“You were lucky to have that much, Oleg,” Baryshev said with a grin. “In my days as a lowly junior pilot, we were only issued one drinking straw per regiment.” Dumping the grin, he turned back to Annenkov. “How about our gear? Is everything in order?”
“No problems,” Annenkov assured him. “My ordnance man, Filippov, reports he’ll have your Kiberneticheskiye Voyennyye Mashiny fully reassembled and battle-ready by tomorrow morning.”
“That’s excellent news.” Satisfied, Baryshev sat back. “Have we received the ‘go’ orders and mission assignments from Moscow?”
Annenkov shook his head. “Not yet. But it can’t be long now. Major General Kurakin is pulling in all of our covert reconnaissance outfits. Once they get here, Captain Aristov’s team will switch over to act as your local security element and ground transportation unit.” Baryshev nodded his understanding.
“I do have one question, Ruslan,” Annenkov said carefully. “Why only employ six of these combat robots in your unit? If Shakh i Mat is so important to the higher-ups in Moscow, why not send a larger assault force?”
“Do you have any idea of how much it costs to manufacture a KVM?” Baryshev asked quietly.
“Quite a bit, I would imagine. Perhaps the cost of a T-90 main battle tank? Or a little more?” Annenkov guessed.
“Try nearly six billion rubles, Yuri,” Baryshev said flatly. “Each.”
Annenkov felt his eyes pop open wide in amazement. Six billion rubles? For a single robotic war machine? My God, he thought. That was around one hundred million American dollars, which meant a KVM cost more than one of those fifth-generation Su-50 stealth fighters Baryshev and his wingman used to fly. Or two hundred of the Kh-35 cruise missiles arming his converted 737-200F cargo jet. “And they’re worth that much?”
“Without question,” the other man said. His pale eyes were infinitely colder now. “Only wait until my fighting machines go into action against the Americans. For years, their puppets and mercenaries have swaggered around the world, believing that no one else could ever develop this technology. Soon they will realize just how big a lie that was.”
For a long, uncomfortable moment, Gennadiy Gryzlov sat in silence, coolly observing the two men who’d just been ushered into his private office. As usual, Viktor Kazyanov, his long-suffering minister of state security, looked apprehensive. He was more a rabbit than a man, Gryzlov thought in contempt. Droplets of sweat already beaded the intelligence director’s high forehead.
Vladimir Kurakin, the head of RKU, was evidently made of stronger stuff. As befitted a decorated special forces commander with years of combat experience, he met the president’s hard-eyed gaze without flinching.
Gryzlov nodded politely to him and then turned his attention back to Kazyanov. “So, Viktor, from that uncontrollable quiver in those fat white hands of yours, I assume your efforts to find and capture the foreign spies who infiltrated the Twenty-Second Spetsnaz Brigade HQ have failed,” he said. “As usual.”
The minister of state security swallowed convulsively. “I am afraid so, Mr. President,” he admitted, with clear reluctance. He moistened dry lips. “Without photographs or even decent descriptions of those who masqueraded as Colonel Zakharova and the accountant Solomin, our army and police units manning checkpoints on the highways and at airports and rail stations had too little to go on.”
“So the criminals who murdered two of our soldiers and stole vital secrets have successfully escaped?” Gryzlov asked. He forced himself to speak calmly, almost as though he were asking the spy chief about the weather outside. Miserably, Kazyanov nodded. “And which of the various foreign intelligence services do your analysts believe committed this outrage?”
“Without more evidence, that is a difficult question to answer,” Kazyanov said carefully. “Ballistics analysis indicates that the weapon used to kill Captain Leonov and Sergeant Isayev was originally issued to an FSB assassination squad that disappeared without a trace in Thailand more than ten years ago. And unfortunately, nothing else we’ve found so far concretely ties this operation to any particular enemy country.”