“Yes, Mr. President,” he said simply.
“Good. I’m glad that’s settled,” Gryzlov said, sounding satisfied. “So now we can move on to the details. First, have your staff planners finally settled on a first target? Or are they still pissing around with their maps and briefing books?”
With an effort, Kurakin suppressed a quick flash of irritation. Selecting the most vulnerable and valuable targets from the wealth of information gathered by his covert recon groups was no easy matter in the first place. But it was child’s play compared with the work required to develop coordinated movement and assault plans that made the most effective use of RKU’s war robots — enabling them to arrive in striking distance in secret and then to escape undetected.
“We do have a recommendation, Mr. President,” he said finally. “We propose launching Checkmate’s first blow to cause maximum damage to our country’s most dangerous enemy.”
“Show me.”
Kurakin pulled out his laptop and connected it to Gryzlov’s ultrasecure private network. Completely independent of any Kremlin servers connected to the outside world, this network was designed to be almost impossible for hackers to penetrate. Only the president’s most trusted subordinates were granted access or allowed to connect their own devices. Periodic sweeps by Q Directorate specialists checked for any signs of infiltration or hidden malware.
A map of the western United States appeared on the large LED screen set into Gryzlov’s desk.
Kurakin tapped a key on his laptop. The map zoomed in, revealing a stretch of high desert in northern Nevada nestled in among several mountain ranges. A target icon blinked into existence on top of what looked like an airfield. “As you can see, there are only a few highways we can use to move our KVMs into range of this objective. But that same relative isolation ensures a significant delay before regular American military forces can react to our assault. By conducting simultaneous cruise-missile strikes at key choke points, we can further—”
“Permission denied,” Gryzlov said quietly.
Startled, Kurakin looked away from the projected map. “Excuse me, Mr. President?”
“I know you’re not deaf, Major General,” the president said. “You heard me perfectly. This proposed target is off the table, at least for now.”
“But why?”
“Because,” Gryzlov said patiently, “if we play our cards right, the Americans themselves will take care of those troublemakers. We won’t even have to lift a finger. Or fire a single missile.”
For a moment, just a moment, Kurakin saw red. What the hell kind of manipulative game was the president playing with him? Only years of ingrained discipline prevented him from throwing a punch right into the younger man’s smug face. That and the certainty that doing so would mean a painful and lingering death. Gennadiy Gryzlov was not a forgiving man.
With difficulty, he regained a small measure of control over his emotions. “I see,” he said through gritted teeth. “Does this mean you’ve already chosen another target of your own, sir?”
“That’s correct,” Gryzlov agreed. He held up a hand in apology. “I’m sorry to have sprung this on you so suddenly, Vladimir. But we’re being handed a golden opportunity… one we would be fools to ignore.”
He tapped the slick surface of the computer built into his desk. Instantly, Kurakin’s operational map disappeared. In its place, short clips from several recent American television news programs scrolled across the screen, accompanied by subtitles in Russian. When they ended, another map appeared — this one centered on the southeastern United States. A single red targeting icon blossomed on the map.
“There’s your new first objective,” Gryzlov said. He smiled, seeing Kurakin’s face suddenly pale. Devilish amusement danced in his eyes. “The Americans are busy making themselves look like idiots with this interminable political season of theirs. So why shouldn’t we help make sure their presidential election campaign starts off with a bang, eh?”
Fifteen
“We’re on final approach to Barksdale, Madam President,” one of Stacy Anne Barbeau’s uniformed military aides reported.
With a big, friendly smile, she looked up. “Why, thank you, Tommy. I appreciate the heads-up. I must have been lost in my reading.”
Ostentatiously, she closed the thick briefing book she’d been pretending to study since flying out from Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington, D.C., more than two hours ago. Why the Pentagon brass thought she could possibly be interested in an assembly of boring background papers about the different units stationed at Barksdale was a mystery. Irritating though it was, there were certain niceties to be observed in her sometimes tense relationship with the U.S. military. Despite the big-ticket weapons projects and pay increases she’d rammed through Congress, too many officers and enlisted personnel disliked her administration and were hoping that Farrell would beat her in November.
The big 747-8, designated a VC-25B in its military configuration, vibrated slightly as its landing gear came down and locked.
Barbeau leaned over in her luxurious big leather seat to look out the armored window. They were coming in low over the lush green woods and bayous of northwestern Louisiana. Off to the west, she could see the muddy brown waters of the Red River snaking back and forth between Shreveport and Bossier City.
Luke Cohen poked his head in through the open door to her onboard office. “We’re all set. The press plane landed an hour ago. And our advance team has the good little boys and girls of the media safely corralled in a roped-off area. They’ve got great camera angles for your arrival, review of the troops, and speech — but they’re set up just a little too far away for any awkward candid interviews with people on the base.”
“Are any of them bitching about that?”
Her White House chief of staff shrugged. “A couple.” He gave her a sly grin. “But our guys blamed it on the Air Force. The imperatives of national security, you know.”
“Nice job,” Barbeau said, pleased. The fact that Barksdale itself was closed to civilians was one of the pluses in what her staff was billing as an official inspection of “renewed American airpower” by the nation’s commander in chief. The press could either parrot back the story she handed them on a platter… or nothing. “How’s the weather shaping up?”
“It’s hot and muggy as hell,” Cohen said. “But the most recent forecast says it won’t rain until much later, long after we’re gone.”
She nodded. Louisiana was her home state and oppressive temperatures and humidity were typical for this time of year. Fortunately, the same Botox injections that smoothed out her wrinkles and made her look years younger than her real age also kept her from sweating. That was just one more secret weapon in her political arsenal. While everyone around her looked about ready to melt, she would come across as cool, clean, and perfectly composed.
Air Force One touched down with barely a jolt and decelerated in a roar of reversed engines and brakes, slowing fast as it rolled down the air base’s nearly twelve-thousand-foot-long runway. Cohen gripped the edge of the doorframe and rode easily with the motion.
Barbeau turned back to the window. Outside, she could see thousands of airmen and officers lined up at parade rest in neat ranks. Their blue dress uniforms made a nice contrast with the reddish-brown earth tones of the wide concrete apron. Twenty-four multirole stealth fighters of the U.S. Air Force’s first operational F-35 Lightning II squadron were parked behind them. Next to the fighters were a half-dozen mammoth, dark gray B-52H Stratofortress strategic bombers, along with two swept-wing XB-1F Excaliburs.