Air Battle Force (14 page)

“No, he doesn't have a right to quit,” Goff insisted. “The vice president said it: Accepting a cabinet post is a position of trust and responsibility, not only to you but to the government. There are times and ways to leave the post—in case of illness or between terms. Resigning just because you disagree with a particular policy is
not
right.”

“I'm sorry he resigned, and I know it'll be hard on us, especially with an election coming up,” Thorn said, “but it can't be helped. Let's get his replacement up to speed as soon as possible, and I'd like to speak with the leadership so we can get through the confirmation hearings quickly.”

“They'll be waiting for you, that's for sure,” Goff said. “Thomas, let me make a suggestion—”

“All right, Robert, I'll call Edward and find out if he wants to meet and talk,” the president said resignedly. “But I don't think it'll do any good.”

“I was going to suggest something else,” Goff said. “Morgan seems pretty sure of something stirring over in Central Asia. I know you said you don't feel that events in Turkmenistan warrant sending American troops. . . .”

“That's right. I don't.” The president looked at Goff. “But you're not talking about troops—you're talking about something else. Robot planes, perhaps?”

It was scary, Robert Goff thought, to consider how intelligent Thomas Thorn was. A guy with a mind and a body as sharp as his would make a very, very dangerous adversary. “We've scheduled a campaign swing out west anyway for next week—that Lake Tahoe environmental forum speech, followed by appearances in Reno, San Francisco, Monterey, Santa Barbara, Las Vegas, and L.A. I suggest we make a stop prior to arriving in Reno.”

“Battle Mountain?”

Goff nodded. “General McLanahan did a great job standing up that unit so fast,” he said. “His first mission over Afghanistan was a success, despite what Morgan suggested. I authorized a mission to recover the drone shot down out there, and I predict that'll be a success, too.”

“I agree, and I'm proud of McLanahan. He's suffered a tremendous loss recently, he's suddenly become a single parent, yet he's worked hard and done well,” the president said.

“I know we've already got the travel schedule built,” Goff said, “but McLanahan might be able to give you some options in case we do need to conduct operations over there.”

“I don't foresee conducting any military operations in any of the ‘Stans, Robert,” the president said. “But . . . you are considering McLanahan's facility as an alternate national command center, correct? Battle Mountain is the underground air base, right?”

“It certainly is,” Goff replied, smiling. “And it does have a very sophisticated communications system—extensive satellite earth stations, microwave, extremely low frequency—for communications with their robot aircraft. It's also far from any other major target complexes or population centers, and it has a twelve-thousand-foot-long runway—the facilities to handle the Airborne National Command Post as well as Air Force One. It would make an ideal alternate command center.”

“Then get together with Lester and build in a visit,” the president said. “I imagine you'll get a briefing from him beforehand on his Afghanistan operation and his take on the situation in Central Asia. If you think I'll need to hear his report, build that into the schedule, too.”

“Yes, sir,” Goff replied. He paused and then looked carefully at his friend. “You don't need an excuse to go talk to your troops, Thomas.”

“I know.”

“You also don't have to come up with excuses to visit a military base just so you don't appear as if you're placating Edward Kercheval.”

“Do you think that's what I'm doing?”

“I think you're more disappointed than you let on about losing him,” Goff observed. “It's important to you to give your cabinet a lot of responsibility, but it's also important to show you're in charge.”

“Do you think I rein Kercheval in too much?”

“Kercheval is a type A, action-oriented guy, Thomas,” Goff replied. “He's also accustomed to being in charge. Secretaries of state in recent years have been very powerful individuals. Kercheval probably wishes he were as powerful and influential as Madeleine Albright, James Baker—”

“Or Robert Goff.”

“Or Robert Goff,” he echoed. “I encourage you to talk with Kercheval, sir, even though I know you won't. There are plenty of folks just as well qualified as he. I only wish we didn't have to take the flak I think we're going to get.”

That same time

Damn, it was good to be alive, Anatoliy Gryzlov thought happily. He clasped his copilot on the shoulder and headed aft to stretch, have a cigarette, and enjoy life a bit before things got busy again.

Air Force General Anatoliy Gryzlov liked to get out of the office at least once a month and fly. With training hours in short supply, it was a luxury even most Russian general officers could not manage. But Gryzlov was different: Because he was the deputy minister of defense for the Russian government and the chief of the general staff of the military forces of the Russian Federation, he got everything he wanted. The troops loved seeing the former bomber pilot, test pilot, and cosmonaut at their base, and they were absolutely thrilled to see the fifty-nine-year-old chief of the general staff take command of a mission.

Unlike many Russian military men, Gryzlov was slight of stature, slender, and quick, with light brown hair cut short—he actually looked good in a flight suit, even a bulky winter-weight one. He found it easy to maneuver inside his favorite aircraft, the famed Tupolev-160 long-range strategic bomber, the one the West called the “Blackjack” bomber. Originally designed to attack the United States of America with nuclear weapons, the Tu-160 was still by far the world's largest attack aircraft. Capable of supersonic dash speeds in excess of two thousand kilometers per hour at midaltitude and near-supersonic speeds at terrain-following altitude, the Tupolev-160 could deliver as many as twelve cruise missiles or a total of more than forty thousand kilograms of weapons at unrefueled ranges of well over fourteen thousand kilometers. Only forty were built, but the little wing at Engels Air Base near Saratov, six hundred kilometers southeast of Moscow, was the pride of the Russian air force.

Gryzlov made his way back from the cockpit and sat in the instructor's seat between the navigator/bombardier and defensive-systems officers, who sat side by side in their ejection seats behind the two pilots. Although the Tu-160 was a dream to fly, and the best seat in the house was definitely the cockpit—except during landing, when the long nose and very high approach and landing speeds made landing the Blackjack very, very hairy—all the action was back here. He stopped at the “honey bucket” in the rest area between the pilots' and systems officers' compartments and took a pee, glancing wryly at the toilet-paper holder hanging on a wire next to the bucket—the only piece of wood, it was said, carried aloft on a Russian attack plane.

The systems operators' compartment was dark but spacious—there was even enough room for beach chairs and ice chests back here for very long flights, although they were not needed on this one. “How is it going, Major?” Gryzlov asked cross-cockpit.

“Very well, sir,” Major Boris Bolkeim, the navigator/bombardier, replied. He gave the DSO, or defensive systems officer, a swat on the shoulder, and the other man hurriedly safed his ejection seat and started to unstrap so Gryzlov could sit there. But Gryzlov shook his hand at the DSO to tell him to stay put and instead took the jump seat. “Twenty minutes to initial point. The system's doing well.”

“Any warning broadcasts, Captain?”

“None, sir,” responded Captain Mikhail Osipov, the defensive systems officer. “All known frequencies are silent. I'm a little surprised.”

“Hopefully it means everyone's done his job,” Gryzlov said. Bolkeim offered Gryzlov a Russian cigarette, but the chief of staff took out a pack of Marlboros, and both he and the DSO accepted hungrily. As they smoked, they chatted about the mission, the military, their families at home. It was just like old times, Gryzlov thought—taking a break before the action started, talking about everything and nothing in particular. This was the part of the job he really enjoyed, getting out into the field with the troops, having a little fun, and doing some serious business at the same time. Sure, he was showing his stars, too, but that wasn't the main reason he did it.

It was not a particularly good time to be chief of the general staff. Anatoliy Gryzlov was unlucky enough to take over the position from the disgraced and imprisoned Valeriy Zhurbenko, who had tried to make a deal with a Russian mobster to force a number of Balkan states to agree to allow the mobster, Pavel Kazakov, to build a pipeline through their country. Gryzlov was nothing more than a politically expedient choice—he was a highly decorated and capable but profoundly unpolitical air force officer—just the way the Russian parliament wanted it.

Unfortunately, that also meant he was no friend of anyone in the Kremlin, especially the president, Valentin Gennadievich Sen'kov. So far that didn't seem to make too much difference. Sen'kov was lying low, reluctant to poke his nose out of the Kremlin too far for fear of its getting bitten off by some zealous—or jealous—politician. Things were just plain stagnant in Moscow these days. There was no money to do anything—which was fine with most folks, since no one really wanted to do much of anything anyway.

But Gryzlov wanted something more. Gryzlov was a former Russian air force interceptor pilot, flight test pilot, and astronaut. With his gymnast's physique, he exuded energy—and he saw most of his energy going to waste in the eyes of his troops, everyone from generals to the lowliest clerks and cooks.

A perfect example of the lack of Russian determination: Chechnya. The little Russian enclave in southern Russia, between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, had already been granted limited autonomy by the Russian government, yet the Muslim separatists there still held considerable power and still performed acts of terrorism throughout Russia, especially in neighboring Dagestan province. The separatists were being openly supported by the pro-Muslim governments of nearby Azerbaijan, who in turn were funded and supported by the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Republic of Turkey.

The place was still a Russian province, for God's sake. And with just a few hundred thousand people in all of the province of Chechnya, most of whom lived in the major cities of Grozny and Gudermes, and very few resources except for the fertile farmlands in the east. It should be simple, Gryzlov thought, to crush the Chechen rebels no matter how much support they were getting from overseas. But the terrain was very rugged in the south, which made it easy for guerrillas and terrorists to covertly move out of the country into Dagestan and the former Soviet republic of Georgia.

That's why, when reliable intelligence information came in about rebel movements, it was important to react quickly. Sending in ground forces was almost always a waste of time—the rebels knew the mountains better than the military did. Helicopter gunships were effective, but the rebels had every known or suspected full- or part-time helicopter base within five hundred kilometers under constant surveillance. If a single helicopter moved, the rebels knew about it instantly.

The best way to deal with the rebels was by air from well outside the region. Anatoliy Gryzlov preferred the long-range bombers. Not because he was a former bomber pilot, but because they were the most effective weapon system for the job—as long as the political will to use them still existed. He was determined to spark that political will. He wanted nothing more than to begin an era of Russian military dominance in all of Central Asia and Europe—starting with the breakaway province of Chechnya.

“Ten minutes to initial point,” the bombardier announced.

“General?” the pilot called back on intercom.

“I'll stay back here,” Gryzlov said. The spare pilot took the copilot's seat, and Gryzlov tightened his shoulder straps in the jump seat and got ready for the action.

Large numbers of rebel forces had been detected moving north from the Republic of Georgia along the Caucasus Mountains between Dagestan and Chechnya. They had been untouchable and virtually untrackable until they were most likely forced to leave the protection of the mountains—driven out, no doubt, by the freezing temperatures and unbearable living conditions of the mountains—and moved into the small mining town of Vedeno, just sixteen kilometers north of the provincial border. The force was estimated at about two to three thousand—a very large force to be traveling together. Not all were fighters, perhaps four or five hundred; the rest were family members and support personnel.

“Initial point in one minute,” the navigator/bombardier announced. He checked his inertial navigation system's drift rate—less than two miles per hour, pretty good for this system. He made the final radar update and zeroed out all of the system's velocity errors, then dumped the latest alignment, heading, position, and velocity information to the twenty-four Kh-15 short-range attack missiles they carried in the bomber's two huge bomb bays.

The plan was simple: first cut it off, then kill it.

At the initial point the bombardier began launching the missiles. One by one, each 1,200-kilogram missile dropped from its rotary launcher, ignited its solid-rocket motor, and shot off into space. A protective coating kept the missile safe as it flew at over twice the speed of sound up to fifteen thousand meters altitude, then started its terminal dive on its targets.

The first twelve missiles, carrying 150-kilogram high-explosive warheads, hit bridges and major intersections of the roads leading in and out of the rebels' sanctuary at Vedeno. Since the missiles had a range of almost ninety kilometers, no one on the ground had any warning of the attack. Five other Tu-160 Blackjack bombers also launched their missiles around the outskirts of Vedeno from long range, blasting away at known vehicle-marshaling areas, storage facilities, hideouts, and encampments outside the town.