For a few moments more, Zhdanov said nothing. Then he glared around the table. “Well?” he demanded. “What do we do now?”

There was a long, uncomfortable silence. Somewhat understandably, none of the assembled generals and senior government officials wanted to be the first to stick his neck out on what could all too easily become the president’s chopping block. Finally, Rogozin reluctantly cleared his throat. “I think it would be best if we took some additional time to analyze the available data, Mr. President.” The Air Force chief looked pale. “The situation we now confront is . . . unprecedented.” Other heads inclined marginally in agreement.

“True,” Zhdanov said harshly. “If by unprecedented, you mean a complete catastrophe.” He glanced at his watch. “Very well, you have one hour.” The expression in his cold eyes hardened. “But not a single minute more. Clear?”

Then, without waiting for further responses, he got up and walked out—leaving his silent advisers still seated, warily staring at each other.

True to his word, Piotr Zhdanov returned to the command center precisely sixty minutes later. Briefly, he’d toyed with the idea of delaying longer, knowing the wait would further unnerve the generals and officials who’d failed him so singularly thus far. But faced with Petrov’s own hard deadline, he’d finally decided the pleasure of making them sweat wasn’t worth the loss of more time.

He dropped into his chair. “All right, gentlemen. Let’s get started.” He stabbed a finger at the now-blank wall screen. “First, can we trace that son of a bitch Petrov’s message back to its point of transmission?”

Rogozin shook his head. “I’m afraid not. The PAK-DA prototype’s strategic communications system is completely secure. We designed it specifically to handle signals between strike aircraft and higher headquarters under wartime conditions. It’s essentially undetectable by any enemy, and, unfortunately, equally untraceable by us now.”

“Explain that,” Zhdanov said.

“The system automatically encrypts any message and compresses it to a microsecond burst,” Rogozin said. “Those blips are then relayed to our orbiting Meridian-class military communications satellites and beamed back down to receiving stations here.”

Zhdanov frowned. “Don’t our satellites record where the signal originated?”

“No, sir,” Rogozin said uncomfortably. “As a precaution against the possibility of American hacking which could allow them to track our bombers in flight, our programmers deleted that function.”

“Wonderful,” the Russian president said dryly. “A piece of brilliant software design that’s just bitten us in the ass.” He turned toward a paunchy, gray-haired man farther down the table. Konstantin Yumashev was the director of the Federal Security Service, the FSB. Largely responsible for counterintelligence, counterterrorism, border security, and political surveillance, the FSB’s ranks also included specialists in cybersecurity and financial crimes. “Can your people exploit that file containing Petrov’s payment instructions, Yumashev?”

The FSB director looked apologetic. “It’s highly unlikely, Mr. President. My experts tell me the funds transfer instruction the colonel attached appears uncrackable. If we agree to meet his demands, any money we deposit will undoubtedly vanish deeper into an intricate web of secret accounts within minutes, perhaps only seconds. With a tremendous expenditure of time and effort, my people might be able to pry their way into the top layer of financial institutions used as transfer nodes, but, ultimately, the odds are very much against our ever finding the ultimate destination.”