Contents ( 55)
- In Memoriam
- Epigraph
- Cast of Characters
- Americans
- Russians
- Canadian
- Prologue
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Thirty-Three
- Thirty-Four
- Thirty-Five
- Thirty-Six
- Thirty-Seven
- Thirty-Eight
- Thirty-Nine
- Epilogue
- Acknowledgments
- Weapons and Acronyms
- Weapons
- Acronyms
- About the Author
- Also by Dale Brown
- Copyright
- About the Publisher
One of them, Spetsnaz Captain Arkady Timonov, zoomed in on the pair of American HH-60G Pave Hawk helicopters parked on the apron near one of the air base’s two runways. Both had their rotors turning. “They’re spooling up,” he said to his companion. “Better get ready.”
“This is madness,” the other man, Lieutenant Leonid Brykin, muttered, more to himself than to Timonov. He knelt beside a large equipment bag and started unzipping it.
“Madness or not, we have our orders,” Timonov growled. Privately, he agreed with his subordinate, but Moscow’s urgent instructions left them with no real latitude. What made it even worse was that their superiors in the GRU had chosen to relay those instructions using encrypted text messages sent directly to their smartphones. Given the eavesdropping and code-breaking capabilities of the American National Security Agency, that was almost as bad as emailing their cover identities and pictures straight to the FBI. As it was, the Spetsnaz captain figured he and Brykin had no more than a day before federal law enforcement officers started looking for Mr. Pindar and Mr. Jones in earnest.
Still grumbling under his breath, Brykin finished unzipping the bag and hauled out a long, green fiberglass tube with a handgrip and trigger mechanism near the midpoint. It was a Pakistani-made Anza Mk III surface-to-air missile launcher. Based on a Chinese model derived from Russia’s own 9K38 system, this particular weapon had been captured from Muslim extremists in Chechnya and then smuggled covertly into Alaska years ago. Quickly, he set the tube in place on his right shoulder and flipped a switch to power up the missile’s seeker head and gyros. A soft hum confirmed the system was ready.
Next to him, Timonov peered intently through his binoculars. The first helicopter lifted off, climbed to about a hundred meters, and then dropped its nose slightly to gain airspeed as it crossed the runway. Accelerating, it swung north, heading straight toward them. The second Pave Hawk trailed close behind. Red, white, and green navigation lights blinked rapidly on both helicopters. He lowered the binoculars. “Here they come, Leonid. Make your shot count.”
The lieutenant nodded tightly. He pressed his eye into the SAM launcher’s sight and turned through a short arc, until he had the crosshairs settled squarely on the trailing helicopter. A speaker behind his right ear buzzed. Steadily, the buzz grew louder and shriller. “I have tone,” he confirmed. The missile’s infrared seeker head had locked on to the Pave Hawk’s heat signature.
Through the sight, Brykin saw the second Pave Hawk grow progressively larger. He estimated that it was now approximately three kilometers away and closing fast. Slowly, he pulled the launch trigger halfway back. That “uncaged” the missile’s IR sensor, allowing it to swivel freely inside the nose cone so that he didn’t have to aim manually anymore. The buzzing noise intensified. Satisfied that he had a solid lock on his target, Brykin angled the launch tube up at forty-five degrees. Anything lower risked having the missile strike the ground when it launched.