collapse. American land-based ICBMs, the Upgraded Minuteman IIIs, were housed in a similar way. But the newer SS-27 complexes were built to withstand greater dynamic shear, strain, compression, torque, and shaking than were their older, lifetime-extended U.S. counterparts. Nyurba sent his Seabee chief to gather all the intel he could on the Russian construction methods and specs, using one of the Japanese digital cameras the team had brought to make permanent records. The espionage opportunities were priceless.

“We have intercom communications with bunker two,” the Air Force major said. His name was Akhmed Ildarov, born in Russia’s restive Muslim region of Dagestan. Ildarov was stocky and swarthy, all business at all times; he’d been naturalized as a U.S. citizen during his childhood. “Our people have seized control in bunker two, sir. They report proceeding to obtain information and items required for armed missile launches.”

“Very well,” Nyurba acknowledged. “Activate all surface TV cameras.”

“Yes, sir.”

The silo crewmen must have turned them off because they found the combat scenes too disturbing.

Display screens lit up to show views, in full color, from aboveground; the pictures weren’t very sharp, and the cameras had no zoom lenses. As the major’s men hurried around doing their jobs, Nyurba mostly studied these screens. Some of the cameras had failed even though they were armored — these, like the radio antennas, were expected to be lost in an attack, and reserve units hid behind armored shutters. Nyurba decided to save those cameras for right before bunker one’s missiles launched — assuming they ever did.

The cameras that were working showed that the fight for the bunker entryways, so vicious while Nyurba was in the stairwell, had reached a stalemate. Before, he’d only been able to see what a pounding his men were taking. Now, he could see what they’d dished out.

New funeral pyres of aircraft and vehicles threw flames and smoke into the sky. Dead Russians lay contorted where they fell. Charred corpses smoldered. Wounded crawled or clutched at entrails or raised their arms in pleading for help. Some of the figures that burned were moving, either because limbs drew into outreaching postures as muscles and tendons were cooked — or because they were still alive.

The Russians had suffered heavy losses from the squadron’s supersonic SA-16 missiles, the shaped-charge and hyperbaric warheads of the RPG-27s, and the grenade launchers and flak-vest-piercing AN-94s. Surviving helicopters and armored cars and troops in the open were mostly keeping their distance. Individuals fired back and forth sporadically, but at longer range the AN-94 was much more accurate than the AK-47 or the AK-74. The camera displays showed that the triple chain-link fences had been knocked down in a number of spots, but the area between them still held many unexploded mines. It was difficult to defuse these mines while under fire from the commandos — this was one factor working to the squadron’s advantage. It held the Russians at bay, even as it trapped the commandos.

On one screen, Nyurba saw man-sized lumps moving on the ground by a gap in the fence. Russian minefield-clearing teams?

The earth around them leaped into the air in many small clods. Hits from AN-94 rounds?

Some lumps jerked or rolled over and stopped moving. The others kept advancing. There was a sudden bright flash on the screen, weird because the picture had no sound. Lumps, and parts of lumps, cartwheeled through the air and landed heavily.

Scratch one more mine-clearing team.

But small units, whether Mi-24s of different varieties, or BTR-70s — or the newer, diesel-powered BTR-80s that had shown up — or squads of soldiers, would make lunges and feints to get the commandos to waste their ammo. Realizing this, the commandos in the entryway dugouts held their fire, playing possum, until the lunges got too close for their weapons to miss. Then they’d fire a missile or a grenade, causing further Russian losses — but expending further ammo, and sometimes taking killed and wounded themselves.

Nyurba saw another lunge, this one by a squad of twelve infantrymen each holding an RPG-27 or similar grenade launcher. They spread out wide to make harder targets, and ran right into the minefield through holes in the fence. Three of them set off mines, and grabbed for legs that weren’t there until they set off more mines and lay dead. Nine men never broke stride, and now were on the asphalt. They were charging straight toward bunker two, from the direction facing its entryway. They obviously wanted to get within the two-hundred-yard range of their warheads and use them as bunker-buster grenades. They wore extra-thick body armor; sometimes they hesitated or staggered as if they’d been hit, but then kept coming. One man was hit in a leg — Nyurba saw a puff of pink vapor come out the back of his thigh. He hopped forward on the other leg. A commando in bunker two fired at one Russian using the grenade launcher under his rifle, but its range in a high lob from the launcher was no better than that of the RPG rockets with their flatter flights. A flash and a puff of smoke showed that the commando’s grenade fell short. That soldier broke ranks, knelt, and fired back. A rocket streaked toward the bunker, and a ball of fire above the asphalt showed that it too fell short — a hyperbaric warhead. The other Russian soldiers were still coming on. One by one they were picked off with shots to the head or neck, or crippling shots to the lower abdomen and groin — or raking full-auto fire that shredded their thighs or their calves. Nyurba was transfixed by this amazing show of courage. Only one Russian had to get within effective grenade range, out of the dozen who had started this death charge, to take out everyone on the stairs of bunker two.

One last man got close enough.

He knelt and aimed his rocket launcher.

A shower of grenades landed all around him. Nyurba was impressed — the commandos had fired in advance as a group, anticipating where he’d be before he got there, so the arcing pop flies of their grenades impacted before he could shoot. Amid the flashes and smoke engulfing the Russian, there was a brighter, more prolonged eruption — a grenade fragment had set off the rocket warhead and its fuel while still in the barrel. All that was left were burning pieces of flesh.

After this the battle went into another lull. It had become a slow and grinding attrition fight: each side wore the other down, bit by bit. The winner, at least of this phase of the larger contest, would be whoever ran out of resources last. The Russians could run low on aircraft and armored cars — or troops could run out of the willingness to advance in the next probe or feint, only to die horribly like those who’d gone before. The commandos could run out of men or ammunition. Based on the numbers on both sides, as Nyurba judged from the camera views and from reports he got over the intercom in the interlock — from which the bunkers’ defending squads were all within radio contact — the commandos would eventually lose. The real question was whether they’d be able to launch some SS-27s before Russian troops broke into bunker one and bunker two and stopped them. The Russians didn’t seem in any major hurry now, which implied that their commanders didn’t think the attackers — whoever they actually were — would be able to launch an ICBM.

Are they underestimating the preparedness and skill of my squadron, or are we underestimating their preventives against an unauthorized launch?

Do they realize we’re already inside two control bunkers?

Nyurba tore his eyes from the screens and watched as the ten men with him continued their assigned tasks systematically and speedily. Some were digesting the normal launch procedures, using the manuals that provided explicit details and checklists. Others were busy hacking the computer systems, to learn the current arming and targeting passwords, and find out how to set the desired flight coordinates and detonation parameters.

Two men kept bombarding their prisoners with questions. The six Russian silo crewmen had been blindfolded, then divided into two groups held out of earshot of each other, one in a corner on the upper level and one on the level below. By cross-examining the men, now deeply under the influence of truth serums, and then comparing answers to the same questions asked of both groups, the interrogators could confirm information and weed out any lies. The chemicals flooding their brain cells made it very hard for the Russians to lie. But these rigorously selected silo crewmen had a strong sense of duty — as two had shown right at the start, they’d rather die than help rogues launch armed nukes.

For all they knew, Nyurba was targeting Moscow.

One of the very first questions was about bunker voice or video recorders. These were located and smashed.

What simplified the main work was that Nyurba didn’t care about procedures to verify that an incoming launch order was valid. This was a large part of silo crew training in any country, but today’s purpose was achieving unauthorized launch. A valid order would include directions for safing the complex’s antirogue traps — the team had

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