Iron Wolf (21 page)

D
ONEGAL
A
IRPORT,

C
OUNTY
D
ONEGAL,
I
RELAND

T
HAT SAME TIME

Descending on its final approach, the lead Scion-owned XF-111 SuperVark flew low over the long, rolling North Atlantic waves. Wings swept forward, it crossed over the rugged, cliff-lined Irish coast and banked back south. It touched down on the black asphalt runway and braked, rolling past the wide white sandy expanse of Carrickfinn Beach—followed a few minutes later by its counterpart.

One after the other, the two fighter-bombers taxied toward a fuel pit not far from a small, blue-roofed terminal building. There were no other planes in sight. This quiet regional airport was used mostly by small turboprops making commuter hops to Dublin or Glasgow, or by oil-company helicopters servicing offshore installations out in the newly developed Corrib natural gas field.

For the Scion XF-111s, this was just a refueling stop—their second since departing the North American coast. Their first stop had been at Greenland, two and half hours ago. According to their export licenses, both refurbished planes were supposedly being sold to a private Polish corporation for use as “flight and technology demonstrators.” Accordingly, they could not be transferred with drop tanks or with active air refueling systems, which limited their range to about two thousand nautical miles.

In the lead XF-111's left seat, Mark Darrow pulled off his flying helmet and rubbed at his eyes. “Tell the stewardess to bring me a coffee, will you, Jack?” the Englishman asked. “Black, no sugar.”

Jack Hollenbeck, the American assigned as his copilot and systems operator for this flight, grinned. He rattled their empty thermos apologetically. “Sorry, boss. We're fresh out. Want me to head on over to the terminal and pick you up a shot of Irish whiskey, though?”

“Christ, no!” Darrow said. “Not unless you want to see if this big beast really can be remote-piloted from Powidz. One good dram of Bushmills and I'll be out like a light.”

“I reckon I'll pass on that for now,” Hollenbeck said, pushing his Texas drawl up just a notch. “If God had really meant man to fly from a console, he'd have given him a built-in video monitor and a high-speed data link instead of eyes.”

Chuckling, Darrow glanced out the canopy, eyeing the little terminal building. He sat up straighter. “Look over there, Jack. We've got company.”

Hollenbeck leaned forward to get a better look. Two men in hats and overcoats stood outside the Donegal Airport terminal. Both were busy taking pictures of the parked XF-111s.

“Plane spotters?” he wondered. “Lots of folks like to collect photos of big bad old warbirds.”

“This early in the morning?” Darrow shook his head. “Not bloody likely.” He chewed his lower lip. “Warm up the sensors and let's get a few pictures of our own, eh? Run what we get through that image-matching software the technical boys at Scion boast about all the time.”

“Gotcha.” Hollenbeck busied himself with the SuperVark's sensor systems for few minutes, humming to himself while he snapped a series of close-ups of the two men still watching them from outside the airport terminal. Then he sent them via satellite link to Scion's powerful and highly capable computers back in the United States.

Almost to his surprise, the software was able to identify both men.

“Oh, man,” he murmured.

“What?” Darrow asked.

“That fat guy on the left is listed as an assistant commercial attaché at the U.S. embassy in London,” Hollenbeck said.

“Which means he's CIA,” Darrow said, disgusted.

“Yep.”

“And the skinny fellow on the right?”

“Oleg Azarov, supposedly a perfume salesman for Novaya Zarya, in Moscow.” Hollenbeck shook his head. “But the computer says he's really a captain in the GRU.” He reached for his keyboard again. “I'd better call this in and let Mr. Martindale know we've been tagged.”

T
HE
K
REMLIN,
M
OSCOW

T
HE NEXT DAY

Sergei Tarzarov studied the satellite photos intently, moving slowly from one to another with care and precision. He made sure his face revealed nothing more than casual interest. The years he had spent as Gennadiy Gryzlov's chief of staff had taught him the dangers of inadvertently triggering the younger man's turbulent emotions. Opposition might send Russia's president into a towering rage, but too-hasty agreement with some of his irrational leaps of intuition were equally likely to send Gryzlov into fits of soaring overconfidence. The psychological improvements he had covertly described to former president Igor Truznyev were real—but they were thinly rooted. No, Tarzarov decided, the wild man still lurked inside Gryzlov. And it was his unenviable job to help keep that beast of unreason chained by logic, evidence, and Russia's true national interests.

He looked up. “These photographs are, indeed, suggestive, Mr. President.” He tapped his chin reflectively. “They definitely prove that the Poles are developing some new military capability in secret. Unfortunately, that is
all
they will prove to others in the international community.”

“You disagree that this is evidence that the Poles are training terrorists?” Gryzlov asked. His voice was dangerously calm.

“The Poles may very well be arming those who have attacked us,” Tarzarov countered. “But from the purely technical standpoint of persuading other powers—the Americans, the other Europeans, the Chinese—these images by themselves are insufficient. If they were taken
before
we were attacked, that would be a very different matter. As it is, the Poles could easily pass this secret military exercise off as a response to our retaliatory strike against them after General Voronov's assassination.”

“You suggest that we ignore this evidence, Sergei? That we shred
these photos and go skipping merrily on our way like idiot children?” Gryzlov said, even more icily than before.

“On the contrary,” Tarzarov said patiently. “We should use this information, but as effectively as possible.” He shuffled the satellite photos together and slid them back across the desk to the president. “Foreign Minister Titeneva will meet with the American secretary of state in Geneva soon, yes?”

Gryzlov nodded. His eyes narrowed. “You think Daria should confront the Americans with this information—and what it could mean?”

“Yes, Mr. President,” Tarzarov agreed. “If the Americans know what the Poles are up to, they may tell us themselves, in order to calm our darker suspicions. And if Warsaw has kept whatever was going on at Drawsko Pomorskie
secret
from the Americans—”

“We sow distrust between the Poles and their strongest ally!” Gryzlov realized. Glowing with enthusiasm, he smiled broadly at the older man. “Well done, Sergei! That is a chess move worthy of a true grandmaster. Without support from Washington, Poland would stand virtually naked.”

O
FFICE OF THE
C
HAIRMAN OF THE
J
OINT

C
HIEFS OF
S
TAFF,

THE
P
ENTAGON,
W
ASHINGTON,
D
.
C
.

T
HE NEXT DAY

Air Force General Timothy Spelling, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, stood up from behind his desk and came over to greet his visitor, CIA director Thomas Torrey. “Nice to see you, Tom.”

He led the other man over to a small round conference table with a view of the Potomac and invited him to sit down.

“I'm guessing this isn't exactly a social call?” Spelling asked. It was rare for Torrey to come all the way over to the Pentagon in person. Coordination between the higher echelons of the CIA and the Defense Department was usually handled by secure e-mail or a conference call.

“You guess correctly,” Torrey acknowledged. He flipped open his laptop and turned it on. “It's about the President's Daily Brief for tomorrow. I need your help in evaluating some new intel and figuring out how to present it to President Barbeau.”

Spelling raised an eyebrow. The whole U.S. intelligence community—the Defense Intelligence Agency, the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, the NSA, and the FBI, plus a host of others—helped coordinate the process of preparing the PDB, which fused intelligence from a variety of sources, but the CIA was solely responsible for the final product. And the Agency jealously guarded its prerogatives, especially in these days of constrained budgets. Having Torrey ask for his input at this stage of the process was a little bit like hearing the pope consulting a Buddhist monk about a tricky theological question.

“Here's what's got me flummoxed.” The CIA director tapped through to a file and opened a series of digital images. He spun the laptop toward Spelling.

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs took a close look. “F-111s? Two
of them?” He glanced at Torrey. “Where were these pictures taken? And when?”

“In Ireland, a couple of days ago.”

“Who took them?” Spelling asked. “If you don't mind telling me, of course.” Like all good intelligence officers, the CIA's chief had a natural reluctance to reveal too much about sources and methods.

“One of my junior people based in London,” Torrey said. “The station chief there got a tip that Sky Masters wanted to do some hush-hush refueling at a little airport in Donegal and decided to take a closer look.”

Spelling leaned back in his chair, his eyes hooded. “Sky Masters, huh? Well, that makes sense. We retired our last F-111s almost twenty years ago. These two must be some of the old Boneyard aircraft Sky Masters refurbished on spec a couple of years ago. As the planned second stage of that interim XB-1 Excalibur bomber program Patrick McLanahan sold to President Phoenix and Vice President Page before the Chinese hit Guam.”

“Which was one of the very first DoD programs canceled by President Barbeau,” the CIA director remembered.

“Yeah.” There was no emotion in Spelling's voice, but that was a matter of long training and practice. The easiest way to shake off senators and representatives trying to make names for themselves during congressional hearings by savaging the military was to sound as dull and dry as possible. “Helen Kaddiri and her people kept after us to allow them to sell the remaining aircraft overseas. But the Defense Security Cooperation Agency put so many restrictions on any proposed uses that I thought the company had given up. It looks like I was wrong.”

“So it seems,” Torrey agreed.

“Did your guys pick up any word on where those two refurbished F-111s were headed?” Spelling asked.

“Poland.”

“Color me not surprised,” Spelling said. He nodded. “I knew Piotr Wilk back before he got into politics. He's always been air-minded, and one of the weapons systems Poland lacks is a dedicated long-range strike bomber.”

“Will those planes make a difference?” Torrey asked seriously.

“Against the Russians? Just two of them?” Spelling said. He shook his head decisively. “Not a chance in hell. McLanahan talked a lot about how much more effective the F-111s could be with all the modifications and upgrades his people were adding. But no two old warbirds like that, no matter how souped-up they might be, could tip the strategic balance in Poland's favor.”

“What if the Poles got their hands on more of them?” the CIA director asked.

“Do you have any evidence of that?”

Torrey shook his head. “Nope. It's just a hunch so far.”

“Well, my guess is that your hunch is pretty good,” Spelling said seriously. “President Wilk isn't an idiot. He has to know that he'd need a hell of a lot more of those planes to make any difference at all.”

“And if he got them?”

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff shook his head again. “It still wouldn't matter. You can't just buy an effective bomber force off the shelf. Without trained and experienced crews to fly them and top-notch technicians to maintain them, the best planes in the world are just expensive toys. Even if the Poles could somehow afford to buy thirty or forty of those old birds from Sky Masters, it would take them years to train up a decent force.”

“Then why are they doing this?” Torrey asked.

Spelling looked grim. “Wilk and his people must be completely desperate, Tom. Hell, if I were in their shoes, I would be. They counted on our support if the Russians got frisky, and now they're finding out that they're pretty much on their own.”

“Which raises the question of whether or not this information should be in the President's Daily Brief,” Torrey said slowly.

The Air Force general didn't try to hide his surprise. “Come again?”

“How do you suppose Madam President Barbeau will react to the news that Poland is trying to build up a long-range bomber wing?” Torrey asked.

“Not well,” Spelling said slowly, thinking it over. He grimaced. “If she doesn't understand what it takes to stand up a useful bomber force, it'll be another excuse for her to figure the Poles don't need our help after all.”

“And if President Barbeau
does
understand how useless those planes are by themselves? Without the crews and infrastructure?”

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs looked even more worried. “Then she'll be pissed because she'll think Warsaw is provoking the Russians for no good reason.”

“You see my problem,” Torrey said.

“Yeah, I do.” Spelling studied the pictures of the two F-111s refueling again. “Do the Russians know the Poles are buying these planes?”

The CIA director nodded. “My guy says there was a GRU-type dogging his heels the whole time—taking his own set of pictures.”

“Then you have to include this intelligence in the PDB,” Spelling said firmly, still frowning. “You can bet Gryzlov will blow his top when he finds a private American company is selling upgraded F-111s to Warsaw. If he goes screaming to Barbeau and you didn't tell her about this, your head will be on the chopping block before she even gets off the hotline phone.”

“I suspect there are plenty of staffers in the White House who've already picked out an ax and looked up my collar size,” Torrey said drily.

“Maybe so,” Spelling agreed. He shrugged his shoulders. “And I bet that I'm on the same hit list. Still, why make it easier for the bastards? Every day you're on the job at Langley is one more day you can use to try to tapping a little more sense into Barbeau and her crowd of sycophants.”

The CIA director snorted. “I'm not sure I'm cut out to go tilting at windmills much longer. Don Quixote came to a sad end, you know.” He closed his laptop. “No, you're right. I can't keep this data out of the Brief.” He shook his head wearily. “But God help the Poles when Stacy Anne Barbeau finds out what they're doing. Because nobody else will.”