Iron Wolf (7 page)

A
T THE
B
UG
R
IVER

T
HAT SAME TIME

Spetsnaz scout Ivan Chapayev crouched down to look more closely at the black inflatable boat his captain had spotted earlier. It had been dragged up from the riverbank and back into the shadows under the trees. Broken branches, clumps of brush, and bundles of grass were heaped across the boat in a crude attempt to conceal it.

Lips compressed in concentration, Chapayev used the thin blade of his combat knife to gently edge aside heaps of the tangled plant debris. Careful, Ivan, he told himself. Take it nice and easy. If he missed just one little booby-trap detonator wire, his wife would get a fancy embossed letter of condolence with President Gryzlov's signature on it, suitable for framing. He chuckled. Hell, that sour bitch Yulia would probably just pawn it for a cheap bottle of vodka.

Nothing.

He sat back, frowning.

The terrorists who had tried to camouflage this boat had done a pretty piss-poor job of it. Even his captain, a decent enough officer but not the most observant of men, had picked it out from all the way across the river. On the other hand, those terrorists must have heard the clattering rotors of Russian helicopters pounding in their ears while they sculled across the water. That had probably pushed them right to the edge of panic. So it was no surprise that the terrorists had just heaped whatever vegetation they could grab on top of the boat in a frantic bid to hide it.

Then he looked more closely at the bundles of long grass he had pushed away. They were withered, already turning brown in the summer heat. Those bundles had been cut and put in place hours ago.

Chapayev's eyes widened. He scrambled to his feet, reaching for the short-range tactical radio clipped to his collar. The terrorists had
not
been in a hurry when they'd hidden this boat. They'd heaped all
this crap across it long before they slaughtered Voronov and his men. Which meant the inflatable raft had never been used as part of an escape across the Bug River into Poland.

Which meant—

A 7.62mm round moving at 830 meters per second hit the veteran Spetsnaz scout in the face and tore out through the back of his head.

Crack!

Ivan Chapayev was dead before the sound of the shot arrived.

Several hundred meters to the north, lying prone in a clump of brush on the Ukrainian side of the river, Pavlo Lytvyn peered through the SVD Dragunov sniper rifle's telescopic sight for another few seconds. “No movement,” he said finally with grim satisfaction. “My target is down.”

Fedir Kravchenko clapped him on the shoulder. “Nicely done!”

The sudden crackle of automatic weapons fire brought a smile to his face. The trigger-happy Poles and Russians were shooting at each other. Killing that fat pig Voronov had been satisfying, but it was only part of a larger plan—a plan that was unfolding successfully. He had lured the Russian Federation into a direct armed confrontation with a member of the NATO alliance. Perhaps now the West would push back against the Kremlin's domination of his beloved country!

“Time to go, Pavlo,” Kravchenko said. “We're finished here.”

Nodding, the bigger man packed up his sniper rifle and followed his leader back through the carefully camouflaged entrance of their hideout, a concrete bunker dug deep into the riverbank. Originally built by the Soviets as part of the so-called Molotov Defense Line during their 1939–1941 occupation of eastern Poland, the half-buried bunker had moldered away for decades—forgotten by everyone except the odd Romany tramp or occasional kayaking tourists taking refuge during a thunderstorm. By the time anyone official stumbled across it, Kravchenko and his men would be long gone.

A
IR
C
ONTROL
P
OINT
A
LPHA
,

OVER THE
U
KRAINE

T
HAT SAME TIME

Four thousand meters above the Ukrainian countryside, Major Viktor Zelin jogged his Su-34 fighter-bomber's stick slightly left, beginning another lazy, slow racetrack turn. His eyes flicked to the fuel indicator. They still had plenty of flying time left before they would have to break away and refuel.

He glanced out the canopy, making sure his wingman was still in position. The other Su-34 was right where it was supposed to be, hanging back about a kilometer off his wing tip. Two mottled green, brown, and tan specks were just visible off to the north, circling low above the mosaic of woods and fields. The two single-seater Su-35 fighters sent to back them up were staying well down on the deck, avoiding Polish radar detection.

“
My popali v zasadu!
We've been ambushed!” The Spetsnaz captain's frantic radio call broke into his headset. “A sniper just killed one of my men and now we're taking fire!”

In the seat beside him, Starikov keyed his mike. “This is Sentinel Leader, Hunter One. Do you need air support? Over.”

“Hell, yes!” the Spetsnaz commander shouted. They could hear gunfire in the background, rising steadily in volume. “We're pinned down at the edge of the trees along the river, with terrorists to our front. Range is between two and three hundred meters. I can paint the target for you with a laser!”

Zelin frowned. That was awfully close for an air strike, even with precision-guided munitions. One little equipment or computer glitch could strew their bombs across friendly troops, not the enemy.

“Can you break contact?” Starikov asked, obviously thinking the same thing.

“Negative! Negative! We've practically got our backs up against the river as it is!”

“Understood, Hunter One,” the navigation and weapons officer said with a shrug. If the commandos were willing to take the risk, so be it. He saw Zelin's confirming nod and added, “Start lasing your target. We're approximately three minutes out from your position.”

“Did you get that, Sentinel Two?” Zelin asked his wingman.

“Two,” a laconic voice said, responding with his position in the formation.

“I'll make the bomb run,” Zelin told the other pilot. “You hang back about five kilometers. If the Poles bring up that damned SAM radar again, get ready to nail it on my command! Clear?”

“Two.”

The major switched his attention to the leader of the Su-35 flight. “
Drobovik
Lead, cover us. But stay low for now.”

“Shotgun Lead acknowledges,” the fighter commander replied. “Just don't leave us down eating dust too much longer, Major. I've already practically harvested some clodhopper's wheat field for him the hard way.”

Zelin grinned. “Very good, Shotgun. Out.” He glanced at Starikov. “Let's use two KAB-500Ls.”

“I concur,” the weapons officer said. “They're the best option.” He began entering commands into his attack computer.

New flight-director bars appeared on Zelin's HUD, marking the course selected by the computer's bomb program. He pulled back on the stick and increased power to the Su-34's two Saturn turbofan engines. The fighter-bomber climbed fast, soaring toward an altitude of seven thousand meters at more than eight hundred kilometers per hour.

The KAB-500L was a five-hundred-kilogram laser-guided bomb. In service for more than three decades, it was a powerful and accurate weapon—able to deliver its high-explosive warhead within a few meters of a chosen target. But it had weaknesses, ones it shared with other laser-guided weapons. Attacking with full precision required dropping the bomb within a relatively small “basket.” This was a zone that met two basic requirements: the KAB's seeker head had to be able to see the targeting laser, and the bomb itself had to
be high enough and falling fast enough to guide itself all the way to the laser-designated target.

In this attack, Zelin and Starikov would have to drop their bombs from an altitude of at least seven thousand meters, which meant their Su-34 would be more vulnerable to attack by Polish SAMs if Warsaw decided to escalate the situation.

“Ten kilometers to estimated release point,” Starikov reported, echoing the data shown on Zelin's HUD.

A shrill radar warning warbled in both crewmen's headsets.

“X-band. Single emitter,” Starikov said, peering at his displays. “It's that same SNR-125.”

“Sentinel Lead, this is Two,” their wingman radioed. “Shall I take it out?”

“Negative,” Zelin said. “We're still well outside Polish airspace. They're not going to risk firing first.”

Or so he hoped.

Technically, of course, he and Starikov were not going to be attacking from inside Polish territory. Since their bombs would have to fly more than nine kilometers to reach the terrorists shooting up those Spetsnaz troops, they would be released in Ukrainian airspace. Somehow, though, he doubted the Poles would care much about that little legal nicety once bombs starting exploding on their side of the river.

Sweating now, he focused on flying his aircraft right down the path selected by the attack computer, making small adjustments with the stick and throttles to stay on course and speed.

“Five kilometers,” Starikov told him. The weapons officer keyed his mike, radioing the Spetsnaz team they were supporting. “Hunter, this is Sentinel. Keep that laser on target, but get your heads down now! We are attacking!”

Twin growling bass notes sounded in their earphones. The KAB seeker heads “saw” the targeting laser. Ten seconds later, the flight-director bars on Zelin's HUD flashed bright green. They were in range. He punched the release button on his stick. “Weapons away!”

The Su-34 bounced upward slightly as two laser-guided bombs
fell away from under its wings. Zelin yanked the stick left, rolling the aircraft into an immediate tight, high-G turn to the southeast. If the Poles reacted badly, he wanted a lot more maneuvering room.

“Weapon impact!” he heard Starikov yell.

Fighting against the g-forces they were pulling, the major turned his head all the way to the right, straining to see through the canopy beyond Starikov's white flight helmet. There, low on the horizon, a huge cloud of smoke and tumbling debris and dirt marked the point where their bombs had slammed into the ground and exploded.

“On target! On target!” they both heard the Spetsnaz officer yelling over the radio. “The terrorists are dead! We are advancing!”

“Lead, this is Two!” their wingman snapped, drowning out the excited commando captain. “SAM launch! Two S-125s inbound at your six!”

Zelin slammed the stick even harder left and shoved his throttles into full afterburner. Accelerating past the speed of sound, the Su-34 turned tightly, breaking northeast across the path of the incoming missiles.

Beside him, Starikov frantically punched buttons to activate their countermeasures systems. The large jammer pod mounted below their fuselage went active, pouring out energy to degrade the accuracy of the Polish radars. Automated chaff dispensers fired, hurling cartridges into the air behind the fast-moving Su-34. They exploded, spewing thousands of small Mylar strips across the sky.

He looked to his left. Two plumes of dirty white smoke were visible against the light blue sky, curving toward them. Shit. Their jammer and chaff blooms weren't working. The Polish SAMs were still locked on to their aircraft.

The major rolled the Su-34 inverted and dove for the ground. “Two, this is Lead,” he said. “Hit that goddamned radar!”

“Kh-31 away!” his wingman yelled.

Zelin rolled out of his dive at less than a thousand meters. He risked another glance to the left.

A tiny bright dot trailed by smoke streaked northwest and then winked out. Then it flared again, slashing even faster across the
sky. The Kh-31P antiradiation missile had a first-stage solid-rocket motor that kicked it up to Mach 1.8 just after launch. At burnout, its rocket motor fell away and a kerosene-fueled ramjet boosted the missile past Mach 4.

Seconds later, Zelin saw a blinding flash far off in the distance.

“That SNR-125 is off the air,” Starikov reported.

And probably dead, the major thought coldly. Even if the Poles had detected his wingman's ARM launch and switched their radar off, the Kh-31 had an inertial guidance system that would take it all the way home to the target.

Zelin glanced aft. Without command guidance from their fire control radar, the Polish SAM
S
were going ballistic, corkscrewing wildly high into the atmosphere.

He breathed out, starting to relax.

And then swore bitterly as another shrill radar warning sounded in his headset.

“Two airborne radars operating in the X-band,” Starikov said. “Computer evaluates them as pulse-Doppler N-O19 Phazotrons. Signal strength is weak, but increasing.”

Zelin keyed his mike, calling the two Su-35 fighters attached to his force. “Shotgun Flight, this is Sentinel Lead. It looks like you're going to have to earn your pay after all. We have Polish MiG-29s inbound.”

L
YNX
F
LIGHT,
1
ST
T
ACTICAL
S
QUADRON,

P
OLISH
A
IR
F
ORCE, OVER
E
ASTERN
P
OLAND

T
HAT SAME TIME

Two Polish MiG-29 Fulcrum fighters, camouflaged in dark and light gray, raced southeast toward the border with Ukraine.

Inside the cockpit of the lead aircraft, Captain Marek Kaczor was trying very hard not to let his increasing exasperation boil over into rage. “Say again, Warsaw Operations Center. Exactly what kind of mess are you ordering us into?”

“The situation is unclear,
Ry
ś
Lead,” the controller said. Kaczor could almost hear the man's apologetic shrug. “We have confused reports of Russian troops on the ground west of the Bug River. And now a SAM battery of the Sixtieth Rocketry Squadron says it has fired on Russian fighter-bombers.”

“Fired on the Russians!?” Kaczor exclaimed. “Jesus Christ! Are we at war?”

“This situation is—”

“Unclear,” the MiG-29 pilot growled, interrupting. “Fine. Great. Wonderful. Look, did the SAMs hit anything?”

“We've lost communication with the battery,” the controller admitted.

Briefly, Kaczor closed his eyes, fighting down the urge to cut loose with a wave of profanity that would probably deafen anyone listening in and earn him yet another reprimand from his squadron commander. Just as quickly, he opened them again. His MiG-29s were already flying blind in a figurative sense. There was no point in doing the same thing literally.

“Well, what
can
you tell me, then?” he asked with exaggerated patience.

“We have intermittent radar contact with two rapidly maneuvering unidentified aircraft over the border area,” the controller told him carefully. “We evaluate them as Russian Su-34s.”

Kaczor absorbed that in silence. According to the best intelligence he'd seen, the Su-34 carried a multimode phased-array radar that could pick out fighter-sized targets at up to ninety kilometers in all aspects. That was a hell of lot better than the old Soviet piece-of-shit Phazotron in his MiG-29 could do. He'd be lucky to spot the Russians at seventy kilometers and that would only be if they were flying right out in front of him. Against aircraft coming up behind, he wouldn't get pings until they were within thirty-five kilometers.

In a short-range aerial knife fight, the Polish pilot was sure his Fulcrum and its AA-11 Archer heat-seeking missiles could defeat the bigger, somewhat less maneuverable Russian planes. The problem would be surviving long enough to get into close range. He wished again that the air force had installed a better radar as part of the major avionics upgrades they had applied to the MiG-29s.

“So . . . what are my orders, Center?” he asked finally.

“We need you to clarify the situation,” the controller said. This time there was no mistaking the embarrassment in his voice. “Do not engage the Russians unless you are fired upon. Observe and report only, if possible.”

“Understood, Center,” Kaczor said through gritted teeth. “Lynx Flight Leader, out.”

He checked his American-made digital navigational display. He and his wingman, Lieutenant Milosz Czarny, were already within one hundred kilometers of the border. At this speed, they should be able to detect those Russian Su-34s in just a couple of minutes.

“You heard the man, Milosz,” he radioed the other pilot. “Finger off the trigger, okay?'

“
Jak dla mnie, w porz
ą
dku!
Fine by me!” Czarny said. “You know this stinks, right?”

“
Stinks
is too nice a word,” Kaczor replied. “So we do this carefully. We go in. We take a peek. And if this is a real shooting war and not some diplomatic clusterfuck, we bug out and wait for backup. Okay?”

Czarny waggled the wings of his MiG-29 in emphatic agreement. “Copy that—”

BEEP-BEEP-BEEP.

For a split second, Kaczor froze in horror. Then his eyes flashed to the readout from his radar warning receiver. They were being painted by Irbis-E phased-array radars—the kind of radar system carried by Russia's ultra-advanced Su-35 fighters. That was bad. Very bad. What made it worse was realizing that the Su-35s were already
behind
them. And they were well within missile range.

“Break! Break! Break!” he screamed into the radio.

Captain Marek Kaczor threw his MiG-29 into a radical, high-G diving turn while simultaneously punching out chaff and flares to decoy radar-guided and heat-seeking missiles.

Deceived by the chaff blooms or thrown out of lock by his wild maneuvering, three long-range R-77E missiles streaked past his canopy and vanished. But three more got close enough for their laser proximity fuses to detonate. Lacerated by dozens of hits from razor-edged shrapnel, the Fulcrum tumbled out of control and then blew up. Burning fuel and fragments drifted north on the prevailing wind.

Milosz Czarny's MiG-29 died the same way seconds later.

Against an ordinary opponent in a stand-up fight, the evasive tactics adopted by Kaczor and his wingman might have worked—or at least bought him enough time to retaliate. Unfortunately for the Poles, this was not a stand-up fight. This was a brutal and thoroughly effective ambush.

Alerted by Zelin's Su-34s, the Russian Su-35s had swung wide to the north and then turned back southwest, darting just above trees, buildings, and power lines to come up undetected behind the Polish fighters. Once in position, they climbed fast, acquired the Poles on their radar, and fired six Mach 4+ R-77E radar-guided missiles, known to NATO as AA-12 Adders, at each Fulcrum.

The two Polish pilots never had a chance.