General Nikolai Stepashin strode quickly into Anatoliy Gryzlov’s office and waited as discreetly as possible just inside the large double doors. Gryzlov was in a meeting with his team of economic advisers; obviously it was not a pleasant meeting at all. When Stepashin finally caught the president’s eye, the chief of staff of the Russian Federation’s armed forces and chief of military intelligence raised a red-covered folder; Gryzlov adjourned the meeting moments later.
“Practically all of the Central Asian republics of the Commonwealth are threatening to withhold wheat and rice shipments in protest against the attack on Bukhara,” Gryzlov shouted, lighting a cigarette and plopping down disgustedly into his chair. “Ukraine and Belarus might follow suit.”
“We made it perfectly clear to all of them that we bombed an American CIA base — we were hunting down those responsible for the attack on our forces in Turkmenistan,” Stepashin said.
“I made it clear to them, but they insisted that any CIA operations in their countries have been fully sanctioned by Moscow — technically true — and that no operations of any kind have been mounted by Americans from those bases in Commonwealth nations,” Gryzlov said. “God, I hate dealing with bureaucrats and politicians! The economic council is panicking, the foreign ministers are panicking — everything is spinning out of control.” He paused, then looked at Stepashin carefully through eyes squinting with the sting of the pungent smoke from his Turkish cigarette. “What is it now?”
“We’ve detected two new visual-reconnaissance satellite constellations, launched within just the past few days,” he said. “Probably American. They did not come from one of their government ground-launch sites at Vandenberg, Shemya, or Patrick Air Force Base; they were either launched by a relocatable sea platform or air- launched. Low Earth orbit, small, some radar emissions, deeply encrypted datalinks. One satellite overhead every twenty-five minutes in each orbit.”
Gryzlov’s face fell. “The target tracks…?”
“Southern and central Siberia — right over the temporary Tupolev-22M bases.”
“Damn!” he shouted, slamming his chair’s armrest so hard that his cigarette went flying out of his hand in a shower of sparks. “How in hell did they zero in on those bases so quickly?”
“It was a risk using the redesigned -22Ms for the raid on Bukhara,” Stepashin said. “It turned out to be a good test of the new birds and the new air-launched weapon, but it raised a lot of questions with the Americans. They’re keeping a close eye on our bombers now — and having the refurbished Tupolev-22Ms do such a good job over Bukhara obviously drew their attention.” Gryzlov remained silent, fuming, so Stepashin went on. “We detected the new satellites quickly and were able to hide the planes well, so I don’t think we have been compromised yet. The Americans will perhaps notice increased activity at bases that have not been in use for a long time, but they will not be able to deduce much more than that. And I don’t think they got a good overhead look at Yakutsk — they were concentrating more on the bases in the west and along the Mongolian-Manchurian border.”
“We will have to step up our preparations,” Gryzlov said. “The modified bombers need to be completed as soon as possible and then dispersed to their secret operating bases.”
“The bomber retrofit is proceeding well ahead of schedule,” Stepashin assured him. “As soon as the satellite coverage goes away — these new satellites are small, not very maneuverable, and their orbits will decay very soon — we can disperse the Tupolev-22Ms and their weapons to their operating locations. I’m sorry the Americans seem to be zeroing in on the reactivated bases so quickly, but we knew they would be discovered sooner or later.”
“I, too, am sorry they apparently have been discovered,” Gryzlov said, “but at this point I don’t care. I’m tired of trying to suck up to the Americans on arms-control issues. The Americans unilaterally abrogate the Anti — Ballistic Missile Treaty in order to build their ‘Star Wars’ missile-defense system; then they expect us to hurry up and conform to the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty nuclear-weapon limits so they can impose further arms reductions on us. In the meantime they continue to leap ahead of us in conventional-weapons technology. We cannot compete with the United States. The only way to maintain our position as a world power is to increase, not decrease, our military capabilities.”
Gryzlov lit another cigarette, then stubbed it out angrily after taking only one puff. “And that attack on Engels Air Base by those American robot planes—
“The Americans want only one thing — complete domination over the entire planet,” Gryzlov said. “Well, I will not allow that to happen. I am going to show how weak and defenseless the United States really is….”
3
We haven’t been successful yet in locating the exact origin of those three Backfire bombers that attacked Bukhara,” Patrick McLanahan reported. He was doing the daily morning briefing of the battle staff at Air Intelligence Agency headquarters. Seated beside him was Colonel Trevor Griffin. “The Russians are keeping their entire fleet of long-range bombers out of sight. However, we have recent imagery that might give us some clues.”
Griffin hit the slide button. “On this orbit we’re examining six bases in particular, all active or former Russian long-range-bomber bases in the south and far east: Omsk, Novosibirsk, Bratsk, Aginskoye, Blagoveshchensk, and Vladivostok,” Patrick said. “Vladivostok is the only base known to be operating the Tupolev-95 Bear bomber, primarily in a maritime-reconnaissance role. The last known inventory of Bears at Vladivostok is eighteen, but in the past couple days we’ve counted as many as thirty-nine. And as you can see, they’re not the Tupolev-142M or — MR maritime-reconnaissance planes. You can tell in these photos that the planes highlighted have no magnetic-anomaly devices on their vertical tail fins, and they have the large ‘Clam Pipe’ bombing radar under the nose. Only six of the thirty-nine Bears at Vladivostok have MAD stingers — the rest are strategic bombers.
“We did not see any planes at the other five bases,” Patrick went on as Griffin changed slides, “nor did we expect to see any — but, for inactive or closed bases, the five other bases showed a lot of activity. For instance, in Aginskoye, we see twelve brand-new and very large bombersize hangars built. At one time Aginskoye was one of the former Soviet Union’s main strategic-bomber bases in the south, housing dozens of Blinder, Backfire, and Bear bombers. But when the bomber forces were cut, Aginskoye was all but deserted, virtually overnight. Not anymore.
“Here was the most interesting feature of this particular shot. Notice the southeast end of Aginskoye’s runway. This base always had a long runway, over ten thousand feet long, but it was only stressed to handle aircraft as large as the Bear bomber, which is around four hundred thousand pounds max takeoff weight. At most bases this means a reinforced-concrete runway of approximately four feet in depth. Let’s zoom in on the end of the runway.” Griffin entered commands into the keyboard, and the digital satellite image zoomed to a very high magnification, losing only a little of its original definition.
“You’ll see some soldiers or guards climbing down the riprap supporting the edge of the runway. Note how high aboveground they are. We estimate about eight feet. That means this runway has been reinforced even more, perhaps double its original structure. The only plausible reason for reinforcing a runway like this is obviously to handle larger aircraft.
“There are only two aircraft in the Russian military’s aircraft inventory larger than the Bear bomber — the Antonov-124 Condor heavy-lift transport, the largest aircraft in the world, and the Tupolev-160 Blackjack bomber. These hangars, gentlemen, don’t fit the Condor — they’re way too short in height and length. However, each hangar is dimensioned to fit two Tupolev-160 Blackjack bombers perfectly. I believe what we have here are accommodations for as many as twenty-four Blackjack bombers.”
“But aren’t there only forty Blackjack bombers in the entire Russian arsenal?” General Zoltrane asked.
