Brown, Dale - Patrick McLanahan 09 (22 page)

 
          
“Go
on to the next item, Thimio.”

 
          
“I
think you should hear this, sir,” the aide said. “Mr. Kazakov says that he will
look most harshly on any refusal to facilitate negotiations with the government
on completing the pipeline. He emphasizes 'most harshly.’ He further says—” “He
has the
balls
to threaten
me?'
Solis shot up from his seat and
snatched the message out of his aide’s hand. “Why, that motherless bastard ...
he is! He’s
threatening
me with retaliation if I do not expedite the
approval process for his pipeline, He is actually saying
‘You will live to
regret any inaction, but the government may not
. ’ How dare he? How dare he
threaten a minister of the Albanian government! I want the National
Intelligence Service on his ass immediately! I want the Foreign Ministry and
State Security to contact the Russian government to arrest and extradite
Kazakov for openly threatening a foreign minister and a foreign government in
an attempt to force us to cooperate with him!”

 
          
“Sir,
he may be a criminal, but he is reputedly a powerful Russian and international
Mafia boss,” the aide warned. “All of the actions you mentioned are legal and
proper responses. Kazakov will follow no such legalistic protocols. If we lash
out, he may just follow through on his threats. Someone will get hurt, and
Kazakov will probably remain on the loose, protected by the government
officials that he bribes for protection. Don't fight this weasel. Stall him,
pretend to cooperate, and let the bureaucratic wheels grind away on him. Once
he finds
Albania
uncooperative, maybe he’ll reroute to
Thessaloniki
, as he’s threatened to do before, or up
through Kosovo and
Montenegro
to
Dubrovnik
or Bar.”

 
          
“A
Russian oil pipeline through
Greece
? That’ll be the day,” Solis said, then
grimaced. “Well, stranger things have happened. Besides, who would want to
build a pipeline through Kosovo or even
Montenegro
? They would have to spend billions to try
to guard it, or billions in rebuilding it every year. Those provinces will
never be stable enough to make that kind of investment as long as the Serbs are
in charge. Even Pavel Kazakov can’t bribe all the warring factions,

 
          
“No,
he wants his pipeline to go through Albania, and Vlore is the logical spot—a
sheltered harbor, easy access to the Adriatic and Italy, good transport
infrastructure, docks, storage, and refineries already in place,” Solis went
on. “But the last thing we want is a monster like Kazakov to establish a
foothold in
Albania
. If we stall him, express our anger, and throw up enough roadblocks,
maybe he’ll take his drug money and sell his pipeline interests to some
American or British oil conglomerates. That would be ideal.”

 
          
^“
So
I should have the staff draft a letter in response—”

           
“Politely acknowledge receipt of
his message, but wait until he’s complained at least three times before sending
the response,” Solis said, with a smile. “Then have it sent to Kazakov by
ground post—in due time.”

           
“Very good, sir,” the aide said.
“And should I initiate a hostile foreign contact report with
NIS
and Minister Siradova of State Security?”

           
“Don’t bother,” Solis replied
casually, as he began flipping through the morning messages once again.
“Kazakov is a murderous punk, but he’s only dangerous in
Russia
. If he even dares try to step foot inside
our borders or tries any strong- arm tactics with us, we’ll nail his rotting
hide to the wall.” He looked at his aide and winked. “Enjoy the watch, Thimio.”

Zhukovsky Air Base,
Moscow
,
Russian Federation

Several weeks later

           
Pavel Kazakov had never really known
his father. Gregor had spent far more time with his soldiers and his duties,
first in the Red Army, then the Russian Army, than he had at home. He had been
little more than a distant memory, a stranger to his family as much as he had
been a hero in
Russia
.

 
          
At
first Pavel had known him only through the letters he would write to his
mother. They would sit around the dinner table mesmerized as their father
related stirring stories of military life, adventures overseas or on some
deployment or exercise. He’d then issued disembodied orders to his three
children from the field—study harder, work harder, volunteer for that project
or this work-study program. His orders had never failed to have the same dire
level of consequences if not followed, even though he was hardly around to
enforce them. Later, Pavel had known his father mostly through word of mouth on
post or in newspaper accounts of his adventures across
Europe
and southwestern
Asia
. He’d certainly been larger than life, and
men at every post and
every
city had had enormous respect for him.

 
          
But
even as his legend had grown, Pavel’s respect for him had dwindled. It was more
than just being away from home all the time: Pavel began to believe that his
father never really cared for his family as much as he did his uniform. It
became much more important for Pavel to see how far he could go to twist the
old man’s ass than to try to earn the respect and love from a man who was never
around to give it. Pavel found out too quickly that he could buy—or force
others to give—love and respect cheaply on the street. Why pursue it from a
living legend who was never around when it was so easy to get everywhere else?

 
          
But
after his father’s death, Pavel had realized several things. First, their
government had let them all down. That was intolerable. But most important,
Pavel had let his father down. Gregor Kazakov had had national respect because
he had earned it—even from his son?

 
          
Nah.
that was all bullshit, Pavel Kazakov reassured himself. The government had
liked Colonel Kazakov because he was a damned mindless military automaton who
accepted every chickenshit job and every useless and mostly suicidal mission
without a word of complaint. Why ? Because he hadn’t known any better. He’d
been a brainwashed military monkey who had had precisely one original thought
in his whole military career—the invasion of
Pristina
Airport
in 1999. The Russian people had liked him
because they had damn few heroes these days and he’d been the handy one. He'd
represented not one true inspirational virtue. Gregor Kazakov had been a
uniformed buffoon who had died serving a brainlessly bankrupt and inept
government doing a thankless, objectiveless, useless peacekeeping mission in a
crappy part of the world. He’d deserved to die a horrible, bloody death.

 
          
Yet
Pavel Kazakov found it useful to invoke the old man’s name as he addressed a
small group of technicians and support workers in the now closed-off main
hangar complex, standing before the amazing Metyor-179 stealth aircraft:

 
          
“My
friends, the work you have done in the past several weeks has been
extraordinary. I know my father, Colonel Gregor Kazakov, would have been proud
to know each and every last one of you. You are true Russian patriots, true
heroes to our fatherland.

 
          
“We
have meticulously planned this mission, gathered the best intelligence,
prepared and tested the best equipment, and trained many long hours for this
moment. The result of your hard work is right here before you. You are the
champions. It has been a privilege for me to work beside you to make this
mission a reality. I have one final word to all of you: thank you, and good
hunting. For Gregor Kazakov and for
Russia
,
attack!”
The group of about one
hundred engineers, technicians, support crews, and administrators broke out into
furious applause and cheers.

 
          
Maybe
the old fart did have some purpose in his life, Pavel thought.

 
          
Ion
Stoica, the chief test pilot at Metyor Aerospace, and his systems officer, a
Russian ex-fighter pilot named Gennadi Yegorov, quickly boarded the Metyor-179
stealth fighter-bomber and performed their power-off, power-on, and
beforeengine start checklists. The interior of the aircraft hangar was then
darkened, the doors rolled open, the aircraft was towed outside, and the
engines started. All of the checklists took just a few minutes, because they
were all computerized—the crew members had only a few checklists that they
themselves had to perform to verify the computer's integrity.

 
          
Now
they sat to wait for the signal to depart.

 
          
Zhukovsky
Air Base east of
Moscow
was an active Russian Air Force military airfield, with several
squadrons of Tu-95 Bear and Tu-22M Backfire heavy bombers located there, along
with several types of trainers, transports, and other support aircraft.
Maintaining secrecy at such a base was not difficult, although it was by far a
top-secret facility. The airfield lights were always extinguished before any
aircraft launch at night to hide the type and number of aircraft departing—a
standard Soviet-era tactic, even in peacetime. Although the main base complex
was close by on the north side of the runway, and a small housing area a few
kilometers to the southeast, the runway itself was fairly isolated. No one
could see the runway complex at night except the control tower personnel and security
patrols that ringed the runways during every launch to keep away prying eyes.

 
          
About
three hours before sunset, two Tu-22 Backfire bombers began to taxi toward the
active runway on a scheduled training mission from the main secure parking
ramp, east of the Metyor facility. Backfire bombers always did all missions in
pairs, from takeoff to touchdown, and so both bombers taxied into position at
the end of the runway, staggered so their wingtips were less than fifty feet
from one another. Behind them on the hold line was an old Ilyushin-14
twin-piston transport plane, nicknamed
Veedyorka,
“The Bucket.” Even
though the plane was almost fifty years old, it was a rather common sight on
most Russian airfields, shuttling parts and mail on short hops from base to
base throughout the Commonwealth. It seemed quite comical to see one of
Russia
’s most advanced aircraft, the Backfire,
sharing a runway with one of
Russia
’s most low-tech birds.

 
          
After
extending their variable-geometry wings to full takeoff extension, the Backfire
bombers began their takeoff roll. The leader plugged in full afterburner and
released brakes, shooting a plume of fire and clouds of thick black smoke
behind him. Exactly six seconds later, the wingman plugged in his afterburners,
and ten seconds after his leader, released brakes and shot down the runway
after his leader. The clouds of black smoke in their wakes seemed to make the
night even darker, despite the bright afterburner plume they trailed. When they
reached midfield, not yet airborne but close to rotate speed, the 11-14 Bucket
taxied forward to the end of the runway. It was required to wait two minutes
after the Backfires departed because the wingtip vortices of the two departing
supersonic Backfires could easily flip the old transport over.

 
          
It
never made it to takeoff position. Something happened. The tower controllers
noticed a bright spark on the right engine, followed by a flash of fire on the
ground, followed a few seconds later by a tremendous explosion as the right
engine exploded. The right-wing fuel tank ruptured, sending hundreds of gallons
of avgas pouring onto the ramp. The transport was ablaze in less than twenty
seconds. The tower controllers immediately hit the emergency alarm, which
activated the lights at that spot on the runway and called out the base fire
department. Security and rescue crews began to respond immediately, in the
sudden confusion, no one on base noticed when a thin, black, almost invisible
aircraft taxied out along a midfield taxiway near the Metyor Aerospace
facility, pulled onto the active runway, and began its takeoff roll. The smoke
from the departing Backfire bombers partially obscured it, but anyone else who
might have noticed it depart in the confusion of the fire at the other end of
the runway would’ve thought it was a third Backfire bomber. They may or may not
have noticed that the third aircraft used only minimum afterburner power, no
taxi lights, no anticollision lights, and no position lights during its takeoff
run. Since it started its rolling takeoff run near midfield, it needed every
remaining foot of Zhukovsky’s fifteen-thousand-foot-long runway before it left
the ground, but once airborne, it climbed faster than the Backfires and quickly
disappeared into the dark.