Tom Clancy Under Fire (41 page)

“And slippery,” said Dom.

Where is Raymond Wellesley?
Jack wondered.

There was no way the SIS man had gone home, which meant he’d set up his nerve center elsewhere in anticipation of the coup. Surely he would have seen Medzhid’s media blitz and the Nabiyev/Sulak story for what they were—Seth’s softening-up barrage.

But had the SIS man left this apartment because he knew it had been broken into or because the move had been planned from the start? The Post-it note suggested the former, but Jack couldn’t be certain, not with Wellesley.

“What’s this mean?” asked Ysabel. “What about the UTM coordinates? Are they just a distraction?”

“Can’t be,” said Dom. “We know the ones for the Internet hub sites are right, and those clearings you found on the ridge are real enough, and so is the dodgy schoolhouse.”

Jack nodded. “You’re right. The ridge sites are at least three weeks old, which means they were created even before Wellesley knew I existed. The guy’s smart, but he’s not clairvoyant.”

“It’s gotta be the schoolhouse; that’s his new nerve center. Where’s a better spot than downtown Makhachkala in the middle of the action?”

“Agreed.”

When will Wellesley make his first move?
Jack wondered.

And what will it be?

Makhachkala

L
ATE AFTERNOON,
as Medzhid was winding down his interviews and his staff was preparing for the move to the command center in anticipation of Seth’s husband-and-wife-farmer bombshell, Gerry Hendley called.

“We got the Keyhole images back. All the Frogfoots and Fencers are right where they should be at Borisoglebsk.”

“Thank the Lord,” Seth replied.

“Not quite yet. John, you tell them.”

“Okay, guys, it’s a bit complicated, so bear with me. Khibiny and Borisoglebsk are places in Russia, we know that. But they’re also associated with something else—EW.”

Jack leaned back and ran his hands through his hair. “Shit.”

“EW?” Ysabel said.

“Electronic warfare,” Clark replied. “Using directed energy to disrupt equipment—communications, radar, television signals . . . Essentially anything that uses the EM spectrum. Depending on the power of the weapon you can jam or fry whatever you’re targeting.”

“Like satellite Internet,” Spellman said. “And cell towers.”

“Right, those are easy. Your hubs are harder. That’s why Wellesley has all of them mapped. They’re queued up for EW attacks.”

“This can’t be happening!” Seth barked. “Hell, it
can’t
be done. Ahmadinejad tried to do it in ’09 and it didn’t work.”

“Yeah, well, he didn’t have what Volodin has. Do you guys remember the USS
Donald Cook
?”

“No,” said Dom.

“It’s an
Arleigh Burke
–class guided missile destroyer. Top-of-the-line warship with latest-generation Aegis, Tomahawks, RIM surface-to-air missiles. In spring of ’fourteen it sailed into the Black Sea to give Volodin something else to worry about other than Ukraine and Crimea.

“Two days later the
Cook
gets buzzed by a Russian Su-24 Fencer. They never saw it coming. The
Cook
’s Aegis radar, fire control systems, comms, and data network went dead. The boat was essentially blind and deaf and defenseless. The Fencer repeated the process twelve more times and there was nothing the
Cook
could do.”

Clark said, “The Fencer was carrying an EW pod nicknamed Khibiny.”

“One plane did that?” asked Ysabel.

“Yes. In the space of a few seconds. Khibiny is part of a larger system called Borisoglebsk-2, along with something they call Zhitel. Rumor is, it’s specifically designed to take down satellite and GPS systems.”

“So, one plane flies over Makhachkala and our whole hub network goes down,” said Seth. “Is that what you’re telling us?”

Jack said, “Relax, Seth.”

“Relax? How about you go fuck—” Seth took a breath, let it out. “Sorry, Jack.”

Clark said, “To answer your question, no, one plane won’t do it. The Fencer disabled the
Cook
because it was a single target, not a diffuse web like you’ve got there.”

“Explain that,” said Ysabel.

Gavin said, “We’re just guessing here, but Wellesley probably doesn’t know exactly how sophisticated your hubs are. For all he knows, after the first pass by a Fencer, you’ll start moving your hubs, cycling the power, maybe rotating frequencies. What the Khibiny and Zhitel can’t see they can’t hit.”

“Which means,” Jack said, “unless Volodin commits a dozen planes and runs round-the-clock sorties, the attacks won’t come from the air. They’ll be land-based. Ground vehicles.”

“Right.”

“The sites on the ridge,” Spellman said. “From up there they’d have a clear line of sight. They could cover the city from one end to the other.”

“Yes and no,” Clark said. “You guys have twenty-six hubs. From what we know about Borisoglebsk units, they’re good at destroying but not so good at hunting. They’re usually paired with tracking platforms.”

“What size are we talking about?” asked Jack.

“For the hunter units, big. Our best guess is they’ll use what’s called a Krasukha. They’re about the size of an articulated semi-truck: squat, boxy, powerful-looking, with a foldable parabolic dish on the back.”

“They sound about the same size as the clearings,” said Spellman. “Jack, you said the sites are spaced at, what, mile intervals?”

“About that.”

Gavin said, “Well, Makhachkala’s about a hundred-eighty square miles, so that’d be about right.”

“Great,” said Seth. “Let’s find the fuckers and kill ’em. Tell us how to do it.”

“It’s not so tough to disable them,” Clark said. “The trick is to first find them, then get to them. You gotta understand: These things are eight-million-dollar vehicles stuffed to the gills with Russia’s latest and greatest shit. They don’t go anywhere without a built-in security team.”

“How big?”

“Figure a light platoon per vehicle—a dozen guys with heavy weapons. Fifty men in total.”

“We haven’t got the firepower to handle that,” said Spellman.

Gerry asked, “Jack, when was the last time you were up to the ridge?”

“Yesterday. There’s no way Wellesley would risk sending the Krasukhas through the city, not with the streets as crowded as they are, and not with so many cameras rolling. If they’re not already on the ridge, they’ll be coming from somewhere else.”

“Wellesley wouldn’t wait until the last minute to bring them in country,” said Spellman. “But maybe they’d stash them within quick driving distance. Either way, we need to get to them before they have a chance to dig in.”

“Isn’t that putting all our eggs in one basket?” asked Ysabel. “John, you said these Krasukhas use separate tracking platforms. What would one of those look like?”

“Smaller, more mobile—and they’d only need one of them.”

“Take a guess,” said Jack.

“Probably a Kvant SPN9. It’s a converted radar jammer built on a BTR armored personnel carrier chassis. You could hide one in a standard-sized garage.”

Gavin added, “Keep in mind, though, it’d need to be stationed away from the Krasukhas. The better the triangulation data they get, the tighter and more powerful the directed energy. With twenty-six hubs to kill they’ll want to avoid hunting-and-pecking.”

Dom murmured, “Byma One.”

“Come again?” said Gerry.

“That’s one of the UTM prefix codes we got from Wellesley’s computer,” said Jack. “Dom’s checked it twice. The spot’s located in the harbor. John, could they stick a Kvant on a ship?”

“Easy. It wouldn’t even need to be visible.”

•   •   •

AS NIGHT FELL,
they split up again, Jack and Ysabel heading back to the ridge, Spellman and Dom to the harbor. Seth, Medzhid, and the remaining staff at the apartment piled into one of the Suburbans for the short drive to the Ministry of the Interior building.

So crowded were the streets that it took Jack and Ysabel twice as long as it had on previous trips to reach the city limits and start up the switchback road to the ridge. At the top, Jack turned onto the maintenance road and doused his headlights, leaving on the yellow fog lights to guide them down the gravel track.

They stopped at the first clearing, then got out and started panning their flashlights over the ground.

“I’ve got tire tracks,” Jack said.

“Footprints over here.”

He joined her and together they followed the tracks to the edge of the clearing. The footprints stopped at a tree; there were fresh gouges in the bark.

“Climbing spurs,” Jack said.

They shined their beams up the trunk until they saw a chunk of metal jutting from the tree.

“What is that?” Ysabel murmured.

“A hook. Let’s spread out and look for others.”

Once done they met back in the center of the clearing.

“Eight,” Ysabel said.

“Six. It’s just a hunch, but I’d say they’re rigging for camouflage nets.”

They checked the remaining three sites and found the same setup—recent tire tracks, footprints, and hooks affixed to the perimeter trees.

Jack made a K-turn in the last clearing and started back the way they’d come.

“Stop,” Ysabel said. “I see something.”

Jack did so and they both climbed out.

He followed her into the underbrush to a tree trunk. Standing beside it was a steel post set into a concrete ring three feet in diameter. Sitting on the ground was a pile of chain; the links were the size of Jack’s fist.

“This wasn’t here before,” Ysabel said.

Jack walked across the road and found a second post. Someone was building a barrier.

“So we take the chain with us.”

“It’s five hundred pounds at least, Ysabel. Let’s get out of here.”

Halfway down the hill, Ysabel pointed through the windshield. “Did you see that?”

Jack pulled over.

Below them the lights of Makhachkala were blinking out in checkerboard sections from south to north.

Jack’s phone rang. “Jack, where are you?” asked Spellman.

“On the ridge road. We see it. The whole city’s dark.”

“At the docks, too. Try to make your way—”

The lights began coming back on, marching across the city until everything was back to normal.

“Meet us at the docks, we may have something.”

“On our way.”

Jack disconnected. Ysabel asked, “What just happened?”

“A shot across our bow,” he replied.

•   •   •

THEY PULLED
into the harbor parking lot an hour later. Spellman waved to them from the sidewalk leading to the docks. They walked over.

“Well, now we know Nabiyev knows where the off switch is,” Spellman said. “If he thinks it’ll do him any good he’s got a surprise coming. Did you listen to the interview, the farmers from Sulak?”

“No,” said Ysabel.

“They were perfect. You could almost see Nabiyev’s people shoving them out their own door with nothing but the clothes on their backs. I’m sure it didn’t happen exactly like that, but the imagery will resonate. A lot of people here live in the same home for generations. The thought of getting pushed out of the place where your great-great-great-grandparents lived and raised children is serious business to these people. Nabiyev’s forgotten that.”

“Then it seems he’s due for a reminder,” Ysabel replied.

“Well said. Come on, Dom’s waiting.”

Spellman led them down the winding walkway to the docks, then up another set of stairs to the harbormaster’s office. It was closed for the night and lit only by a sconce fixed above a plexiglass-covered pegboard. Dom was leaning against the wall.

“You saw the un-light show?” he asked.

Ysabel nodded. “Are we sure it wasn’t a hiccup in the grid?”

“No, it was deliberate,” said Spellman. “We expected this. Sometime tomorrow he’ll shut the grid down again—this time for the duration—then he’ll order the city’s ISPs offline. We’ll let him savor the victory for a couple hours, then bring our hubs online.”

“What’ve you got, Dom?” asked Jack.

His friend was wearing a smug smile.

Dom tapped the plexiglass. “The
Igarka
. She’s a seventy-foot front-ramp hauler out of Astrakhan. She’s due to put in tomorrow morning at pier four, mooring twelve. I’ll give you one guess where that is.”

Ysabel answered. “On top of Byma One.”

“You got it. In fact, the
Igarka
’s already here—at anchor.” He pointed out into the harbor. Jack could see the ship’s masthead light winking in the darkness.