Three separate control bunkers were spaced hundreds of yards apart, each responsible for three missiles in their silos. Together this constituted an independent regiment of SS-27 ICBMs.
A wide concrete access road, raised well above the surrounding terrain for good drainage and less snow buildup, led to Nyurba’s left from the gates and disappeared into the forest. The power lines followed a cutting through the pines, paralleling this road. Both led toward the regimental support base, ten miles away near the town of Srednekolymsk, on the Kolyma River. The support base, in a secure cantonment of its own, had staff offices and barracks, maintenance and storage facilities, and an underground command bunker. Srednekolymsk boasted all the creature comforts and vices — including sordid fleshpots — that a Siberian river harbor town typically offered.
Kurzin crawled up next to Nyurba. “The sniper-observers have seen no signs of life in any guard towers. They think they’re unoccupied.”
“Not surprising,” Nyurba said, “considering the attitude of the guards at the gate.”
“I expect they’ll act more conscientious when the relief crews and supply trucks get here.”
Nyurba glanced at his wristwatch, wiped of fingerprints and worn over his left glove. It was almost 6 A.M. “Pull back and establish our phony roadblock?”
“Tell the snipers to stay in place,” Kurzin said. “Have everyone else assemble on my HQ.” Kurzin’s headquarters was a hollow in an especially thick stand of trees.
Over his miniaturized tactical radio, Nyurba issued orders to the platoon leaders. He wore the radio’s lightweight headset under his helmet. The radio was Russian special forces equipment, copied from American technology. The squadron’s radios used a method to avoid detection or jamming that was similar to the undersea acoustic links of the subs they’d ridden to get here. Voice messages were encrypted and turned into digital pulses. These were transmitted on frequencies that jumped around thousands of times per second. The frequency band they used was normally meant for radar. As a result, the transmissions penetrated undergrowth and bounced around structures, to give better reception than regular radios could.
Except the team’s Russian equipment had been changed. The battlefield encryption-decryption routine was German, one recently broken by the NSA. The frequency-agile specifications programmed into the radios were also German. Even real Russian Spetsnaz, with the same type of radio sets, wouldn’t be able to monitor the team — which was vital to mission security.
And when some of the radios were left behind during the raid, their altered software would be one more piece of evidence incriminating Germany.
An hour later, Kurzin’s squadron was set up in the trees that lined the access road, three miles away from the gate into the silo complex. The road curved slightly to avoid granite outcroppings, and took a steep grade down toward the support base near the town by the river, so this spot didn’t have a view of either the base or the missile site — and vice versa.
Nyurba switched his lip mike to voice-activated mode. “Snipers, Nyurba, radio check, over.”
One by one the four men confirmed that they could hear him. He responded that he could hear them, too. He requested a status report from the missile complex. The sniper-observers, hiding in the dead undergrowth in the defoliated zone around the fences, each reported that nothing significant had occurred since the main body of the squadron had maneuvered off through the woods. Nyurba acknowledged, and left his mike open so they and the rest of the team could get from him a running commentary on any developments.
Eight A.M. came and went, but nothing happened on the road.
Nyurba began to worry. “Sir, you think they did the shift change all by helicopter?” If so, leapfrogging any roadblocks by air, the squadron’s task had just become infinitely more difficult.
Kurzin shook his head. “It’s not that far. We’d’ve heard.”
The team continued to wait, and wait.
By 2 P.M., Nyurba grew very concerned. “Sir, what if our NSA guys made a mistake? Or the Russians changed the schedule?”
“What if?” Kurzin asked sarcastically. By now he’d also set his radio to open-microphone mode. “We could be here for days.”
Around him, Nyurba sensed the other commandos reacting to having heard this, and he could feel their morale start to drop like an almost physical thing.
“Adopt the contingency plan?”
Kurzin turned to look at Nyurba. He opened his mouth to say something when they both heard a sound in the distance, from Srednekolymsk or the support base.
All four snipers called in at once, pandemonium in Nyurba’s headset.
“Radio discipline!” Kurzin snapped.
The confusion on the circuit stopped. The seniormost sniper-observer reported, more calmly. “A guard in the shack got a phone call. Then he ran out and yelled to the others. They took off in every direction…. The guard towers and machine gun nest are manned. Tripod-mounted machine guns are now visible in each of the towers. Estimate them as seven point six two millimeter.” Thirty-caliber antipersonnel weapons.
“Acknowledged. Report any changes. Kurzin out.”
That sound Nyurba had heard was getting much louder.
Suddenly two Mi-24 Hind-F attack helicopters came around a bend in the road and zoomed by, almost brushing the treetops. Nyurba was lashed by the downdraft from their five main rotor blades; he saw tree branches sway. Each Mi-24’s sides had stub wings bristling with rocket pods and missiles. There was a thirty-millimeter tank-buster gun on a turret under their chins, a Gatling cannon that distinguished Hind-Fs from earlier versions. F- models carried no passengers, just the gunner plus a pilot seated above and behind him. Both Mi-24s were colored a mottled matte green-brown, which made them seem businesslike and merciless.
“Kurzin, Sniper One,” an edgy voice called.
“One,” Kurzin responded, “go.”
“An Mi-Twenty-four-F is circling the complex. A second is searching the woods.”
“Kurzin, roger, out.” The air now stank of sickly sweet helicopter turbine exhaust.
“Extra precautions for the shift change?” Nyurba asked.
“Not a favorable development. Satellites never saw this sort of thing tied in to crew rotations.”
Nyurba heard another engine sound, different in quality. Heavy vehicles were climbing the road from the base to the complex — the only paved route in the area.
“That’s our cue,” Kurzin said tightly. Nyurba’s heart began to pound. They and eight men stepped out into the middle of the road, their special forces equipment and Spetsnaz insignia conspicuous. Some wore cloth shoulder patches, others large enameled-metal breast badges; the main feature on the insignia was a pack of vicious wolves. Kurzin and Nyurba were both dressed as lieutenant colonels — hefty rank.
Instead of a UAZik jeep, or supply trucks, a BTR-70 eight-wheeled armored car tore around the curve at fifty miles per hour, top speed, painted dark green with black patches. Behind it immediately followed another, identical BTR-70. The front of each as it came on was a steeply sloping wave deflector; the BTRs were amphibious. On the roof, just behind the driving compartment, was a small conical turret with a thick machine gun barrel. Nyurba knew this was a 14.5 millimeter weapon — bigger than.50 caliber, it could tear right through engine blocks of soft-skinned vehicles, even disable other armored cars. The twin gasoline engines of each BTR strained hard.
He and Kurzin stood their ground and raised an arm for them to stop.
“Back!” Kurzin shouted. Both drivers swerved to get out of their way. Each nimble BTR-70 had a triangular- shaped door in its side through which infantry could dismount. As the armored cars roared past, Nyurba had time to
