“Targets destroyed,” Nadia said. “My camouflage worked perfectly. The Russians never saw me.”
Brad nodded in satisfaction. In a brutal, close-quarters urban fight like this, every edge counted. When stationary or moving slowly, the advanced camouflage systems carried by their Sky Masters Aerospace — built Mod IV CIDs rendered them almost invisible to enemy IR sensors and even to the naked eye.
Hundreds of small, hexagonal thermal adaptive tiles overlaid each robot’s armored “skin”—tiles that could change temperature with extraordinary rapidity. Computers could adjust them to mimic the heat signatures of trees, buildings, and other vehicles. In turn, paper-thin electrochromatic plates covered these thermal tiles. Tiny voltage changes could alter the mix of colors displayed by each plate, giving the CID a chameleon-like ability to blend in with its environment. But both camouflage systems lost effectiveness and drained too much power if they were used when moving at high speed.
Like he was now.
Brad charged ahead, shooting up a glass-walled building used for security screening. The Russian soldiers who’d been firing back at him from inside were hurled backward, either blown apart by 25mm autocannon rounds or cut to ribbons by flying glass.
Flashes winked at him from open arches below the Troitskaya Tower’s spire. Rifle bullets thwacked into his CID’s torso, shattering a couple of its thermal tiles. He spun away and ducked into cover behind the ruins of the security building.
“Drone imagery and scans downlinked,” Macomber radioed. “Looks like the bastards are reacting as expected.”
Brad saw new data relayed through his neural interface appear on his displays. Their Iron Wolf assault team had half a dozen small and very stealthy drones orbiting high over the Kremlin — acting as their eyes and ears beyond the reach of their CIDs’ sensors.
At a glance, he could see that the colonel was right. Most of the Kremlin’s elite guard infantry platoons and armored vehicles were deploying to protect the walled compound’s gates. Anyone trying to breach those entrances would be met by a hail of antitank missiles, rocket-propelled grenades, and 125mm tank cannon fire. Not even the composite armor on their CIDs would hold up against that kind of firepower.
Which was exactly why Brad had never planned to conduct a real attack on the gates.
With a wolfish grin, he darted away from the Kutafya Tower, swung over the iron railing, and dropped lightly into the tree-lined expanse of the Alexandrovsky Garden. The Russians had bought his feint. Now it was time to show them why they should have been thinking vertically instead.
Brad sprinted south, paralleling the Kremlin wall rising beyond the trees. An antitank missile streaked after him, impacted against the trunk of a lime tree, and blew up. He dodged away and kept running.
Preset targeting icons appeared on the massive redbrick wall. “Engaging Spider-Man protocol,” he said wryly. He raised his autocannon, quickly checking to make sure he had armor-piercing rounds loaded. Then he skidded to a stop and opened fire.
WHANG. WHANG. WHANG. WHANG.
Broken bits of pulverized brick exploded away from the wall. Ragged craters appeared at precisely calculated intervals, rising from near the bottom all the way to the top. Since the Kremlin’s ancient defense barrier ranged between eleven and twenty-one feet thick, none of the rounds penetrated all the way through.
But that’s not the point, now, is it? Brad thought with a silent laugh. Swiftly, he slid the autocannon and grenade launcher back into his weapons pack, flexed the fingers of the CID’s hands, and then started climbing the wall — pulling himself up fast using the craters he’d just blown in the brickwork as handholds.
He reached the battlements and scrambled onto a wide walkway used by guards to patrol the wall. There, he met a disheveled-looking soldier hurrying toward the distant Troitskaya Tower. The Russian was frantically trying to squirm into a bulky set of body armor.
The man stopped dead. He stared up at the huge combat robot in horror. “Mater’ Bozh’ya! Mother of God!”
Apologetically, Brad shook his head. “Sorry, pal. That’s not me.” Then he grabbed the Russian with one big metal hand and tossed him off the wall. Shrieking, the soldier vanished into the darkness. His despairing wail ended in a dull, wet-sounding thud.
Brad winced. That had to hurt.
He blurred back into motion and dropped over the other side, coming down on his CID’s hands and knees inside the Kremlin compound itself. He was in a small courtyard close to the armory.
Without further thought, Brad stood back up and pulled out his rail gun. It powered up with a shrill, high-pitched whine. The autocannon dropped into his other hand.
He looked around for a way out of the courtyard and spotted a big, solid-looking wooden door into the nearest building. One quick kick smashed it open, revealing a short, well-lit corridor.
Bending low, Brad trotted down the corridor. He ignored a gaggle of panicked clerks and officials scrambling out of his path. They were no threat. None of them were armed.
He smashed through another door and came out onto Dvortsovaya Boulevard. The State Kremlin Palace, a massive and horrifically ugly Soviet-era glass-and-concrete edifice, loomed straight ahead. Blowing the snot out of that monstrosity would probably be doing the Russians a favor, Brad decided.
Instead, he swung away and sprinted north toward the Troitskaya Tower gate. His CID burst out into the open, right on the flank of the Russian infantry and armored units deployed to block the gate. Targets crowded his vision.
Brad opened fire with both the rail gun and autocannon, often shooting almost simultaneously at different targets. Tracked BMP infantry fighting vehicles and T-72 tanks shuddered and exploded — ripped open by rail-gun rounds. Infantrymen and antitank missile crews scattered in panic. A few, braver or more foolish, turned to fight. Autocannon bursts knocked them dead or dying to the cobblestone pavement.
He stalked on through a nightmarish tangle of burning vehicles and bleeding soldiers, slowing only now and again to destroy new targets identified by his CID computer. Through the thickening smoke, he could make out the wooded confines of the Kremlin’s Senate Square… and beyond that, a large, triangular-shaped building, the Kremlin Senate itself. Its yellow walls were studded with tall white columns.
Brad’s mouth tightened. Signals intercepts and other intelligence confirmed that building was where Russia’s vicious president, Gennadiy Gryzlov, was holed up, along with his closest advisers. He raised his rail gun, aiming at the upper floors. Three or four slugs ripping through those walls at supersonic speeds ought to kick things off with a nice bang.
Suddenly Nadia Rozek broke in over the radio. “Unidentified movement from the west detected. Moving to engage!” She sounded startled. “I cannot get a lock. Repeat, I cannot get a—”
Her voice vanished, replaced only by crackling static. In that same moment, the icon representing her robot abruptly flared orange and then red. It winked out.
Brad swallowed hard against the taste of bile. Somehow, some Russian son of a bitch had just knocked out Nadia’s CID. He spun around, looking for the fastest way to her last known position.
“Drop it, McLanahan!” Whack Macomber growled. He sounded like death itself. “Continue the mission. I’m on this.” The icon showing the colonel’s own CID was already in motion, rushing north.
“Understood, Wolf Six,” Brad said through gritted teeth. He turned back toward Gryzlov’s lair. It was time to finish this.
More hostiles approaching, his computer reported calmly, reclaiming his attention. Threat axis at three o’clock.