One
The world is in greater peril from those who tolerate or encourage evil than from those who actually commit it.
Moscow was burning.
Fires glowed orange-red around the horizon in all directions. Each blaze showed where long-range standoff weapons launched by Polish and Iron Wolf fighter-bombers and drones had slammed home — obliterating Russian surface-to-air missile batteries, military airfields, air defense radars, and command posts.
Sun-bright flashes rippled across the night sky, lighting up a spaghetti-like tangle of wildly corkscrewing smoke trails left by missiles. Blinded by the loss of most of their radars and by waves of electronic jamming and decoys, the city’s surviving air defense units were shooting almost at random, hoping to score lucky hits. It was all they had left to fend off any airborne attackers slashing in to strike Moscow’s center of political and military power, the Kremlin.
But the Russians were too late. Their enemies were already on the ground, well inside their outer defenses.
Vozdvizhenka Street ran almost due west toward the tall red-brick walls and towers surrounding the Kremlin. On one side of the street, three- and four-story buildings housed a mix of cafés, restaurants, shops, and government offices. A wing of the huge Russian State Library ran along the other.
Now wreckage and rubble blocked most of the street. Oily pillars of black smoke curled lazily away from mangled police cars and BTR-82 armored personnel carriers. Bodies were strewn across the cratered pavement. Flames danced eerily inside darkened buildings blown open by high-explosive rounds.
Nothing seemed to be moving.
And then a twelve-foot-tall humanlike machine emerged from the billowing smoke — moving with terrible, almost predatory swiftness. Two arms carried weapons, a 25mm autocannon and a 40mm automatic grenade launcher. More equipment and weapons packs were attached to its long, broad-shouldered torso. A six-sided head studded with sensor panels swiveled intently from side to side, carefully scanning the surrounding streets and buildings.
It was a Cybernetic Infantry Device — a human-piloted combat robot. First developed by a U.S. Army research lab years before, every CID carried more firepower than a conventionally equipped infantry platoon. Protected by highly resistant composite armor, its powered exoskeleton was faster and stronger than any ten men combined. A special haptic interface translated its pilot’s smallest gestures into motion by the exoskeleton, allowing the robot to move with eerie precision and agility.
Very few Russians ever saw a CID up close and most who did died within seconds.
Inside the robot’s cockpit, Brad McLanahan concentrated intently, allowing data gathered by a wide array of passive and active sensors to pour into his mind through a neural link with the CID’s sophisticated computer systems. Red targeting indicators blinked into existence across his displays. Each identified an enemy infantry squad or heavy-weapons team frantically deploying along his axis of advance. They were taking up concealed positions inside buildings, planning to ambush him with machine-gun fire and RPGs as he charged past.
Sorry guys, he thought, you can’t run and you can’t hide. Not from me. The direct link with his sensors, coupled with advanced computer analysis, gave him astonishing situational awareness. It was like being gifted with a god’s-eye view of the world.
With difficulty, Brad fought down a sudden sense of wild, inhuman glee. Piloting one of these Iron Wolf Squadron combat robots was an incredible thrill ride. You couldn’t help feeling an almost godlike rush of power, perception, and speed. But that way lay madness… and death.
CIDs were tough… but they weren’t invincible. Some of his friends had found that out the hard way.
C’mon, McLanahan, get your head back in the game, Brad growled to himself. The Russian soldiers scurrying across his path to the Kremlin were off balance, shocked by this sudden attack and their horrendous losses. They were ready to break. But going in half-cocked was just a way to get killed.
“Wolf One to Wolf Six and Wolf Two,” he said aloud, opening a secure channel to the other Iron Wolf Squadron war machines committed to this operation. “I’m roughly four hundred meters from the ramp to the Troitskaya Tower gate. Standing by.”
“Six copies,” the laconic voice of Colonel Wayne “Whack” Macomber answered through his headphones. “I’ve got the right flank.”
“Two copies, Wolf One. I am in position to guard your left flank,” a clear, crisp female voice said a heartbeat later. “Submit we stop pissing around and finish this before the Russians fully wake up. Even they will not run around like idiots forever.”
Brad couldn’t help smiling. In combat, Major Nadia Rozek was tough, fearless, and intensely focused. Off duty and out of uniform, she was astonishingly passionate. But no matter where she was, the beautiful, dark-haired Polish special forces officer was a force of nature. When she made up her mind to do something, you either sided with her or you got the hell out of her way. There were no other choices.
“You heard the major, McLanahan,” Macomber murmured.
“Loud and clear, Whack,” Brad agreed. Mentally, he commanded his CID’s battle computer to assign priorities to every Russian defensive position its sensors had identified — ranking them by the danger they represented. In seconds, its software finished work that would have taken a human staff officer minutes. His targeting indicators changed color and shape to match those priorities.
He took a deep breath, getting centered. “Attacking now!”
Without waiting for a response, Brad sprinted up the street — speeding up with every long-legged stride. Dodging around a wrecked personnel carrier, he opened fire on the move. Rounds from his autocannon hammered an upper-floor window ahead, killing a lurking Russian RPG team. Shards of shattered stone and broken glass spilled onto the pavement.
Another icon blinked insistently at the edge of his vision, highlighting a darkened doorway. 12.7mm heavy-machine-gun team, the CID reported. Threat level high.
No shit, Brad thought. Rounds from that Russian MG might not penetrate his armor, but they could definitely damage or destroy his sensors and other equipment. Instantly, he swiveled the robot’s torso and fired a 40mm high-explosive grenade into the opening. It went off with a dazzling flash.
The threat icon disappeared.
Still shooting on the run, he dashed across Mokhovaya Street, hurtled over a row of stubby metal pillars designed to block traffic, and landed in a wide stone-paved plaza. The Kutafya Tower rose ahead. This barbican was the Kremlin’s main public entrance. Past its wrought-iron gates, a gently inclined ramp sloped up to the tall, spired Troitskaya Tower. To the right, treetops rose above a guardrail at the plaza’s edge. That was the Alexandrovsky Garden, a narrow tree-lined stretch of walkways, flower gardens, and lawns occupying what had once been a moat around the old fortress.
“Armored vehicles approaching,” he heard Nadia Rozek report coolly. “T-90 and T-72 main battle tanks. I am engaging.”
CCRRACK! CCRRACK! CCRRACK!
The sky on Brad’s left lit up as she opened fire with her electromagnetic rail gun, flaring bright white with every shot. Propelled at Mach 5, small superdense metal projectiles punched into the enemy tanks and tore right through their armor. One by one, wrecked T-90s and T-72s slewed across the road and shuddered to a stop, spewing smoke and flame.