When General Orlov radioed Major Levski, commander of the twelve-man Molot team, and ordered him to prepare for a flight to Bira, Colonel Rossky had heard enough. He entered a computer code that accessed a private line, a direct line to the Ministry of the Interior, and apprised Minister Dogin of the situation. Dogin said he would contact General Mavik to arrange for Orlov's departure, and instructed Rossky to begin making plans to assume control of the Operations Center.

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

Tuesday, 8:35 A.M.,

South of the Arctic Circle

Lieutenant Colonel Squires looked on absently as Ishi Honda checked the communications gear in his rucksack. While they were on the 76T, they used the airplane's uplink to talk to Op-Center. Once they were on the ground, however, they would be using the miniature black antenna tucked into the side of the ruck, next to the radio itself.

Honda knelt and unfolded the legs and arms of the seventeen-inch-diameter unit, checking to make sure that each prong was fully extended. He screwed the antenna's black, coaxial cable into the radio, slipped on his headset, and listened as the system went through a self-calibration check. Then he checked the microphone, counting backward from ten, and gave Squires an okay signal.

Next, he checked the global positioning system receiver, a remote-control-sized device with a luminous digital readout stored in a side pocket of the rucksack. He sent out a quarter-second signal which would enable him to make sure the device was working and yet wouldn't give the Russians time to fix their position. Private DeVonne was entrusted with the team's compass and altimeter, and would be responsible for getting them to the extraction point once the mission was completed.

Having woken from a nap, Sergeant Chick Grey checked his Tac III assault vest. Instead of containing a gas mask and 9mm submachine gun magazines, the pouches contained the C-4 they'd need for the mission. Before parachuting into Russia, all the Striker members would don their warm, rigid Nomex gloves, balaclavas, coveralls, goggles with shatterproof lenses, Kevlar vests, and assault boots. Then they would check the equipment in their Tac III overvests as well as the rappelling belts, the thigh pockets with flash/bang grenades, and their H&K 9mm MP5A2 submachine guns and Beretta 9mm pistols with extended magazines.

Only one thing was missing, Squires felt. He would have traded all the hot, hi-tech gear for a small fleet of fast-attack vehicles. Once they were on the ground in Russia, there wouldn't be much that Op-Center could do to help them with the train or extraction. But a couple of FAVs to get them across the rocks and ice at eighty miles an hour, with maybe an M6OE3 machine gun forward, a rear seated gunner with a.50-caliber machine gun-- now, that would be nice. Hell to parachute down and assemble, but nice.