Plan of Attack

The bomb bay itself contained a rotary launcher with six Kh-31P long-range antiradar missiles. As they closed in on their launch point, Leborov and three of the other lead bombers would be responsible for shutting down the local radar sites along their intended route of flight, including Yellowknife, Pine Point, Uranium City, Lynn Lake, Fort Nelson, Cold Lake, Edmonton, and Whitehorse. The ramjet-powered Kh-31s had a range of two hundred kilometers and a maximum speed of Mach 3, with a ninety-kilogram high-explosive fragmentary warhead that would shred a radar antenna or a building into pieces in the blink of an eye.

The inspection complete, Leborov and the bombardier crawled along the narrow catwalk back the length of the bomb bay and looked in on the gunner, seated in the very aft tail cabin. They did not ask him to open his pressurized hatch — that meant he would have had to put on his oxygen mask and depressurize his compartment — but instead just knocked on the porthole and got a thumbs-up from him. The gunner was surrounded by box lunches filled with low-residue snacks, a small stack of magazines, numerous bottles of water, and metal boxes to store his relief bags. Normally the gunner stayed up front with the crew in a jump seat until close to enemy territory, but during formation flying his job was to keep an eye on the wingmen through his large windows and tail radar, so he had to spend the entire mission in his little compartment.

Despite the bone-chilling cold, Leborov was bathed in sweat by the time he’d returned to the cockpit and strapped himself into his seat again. “Pilot’s back up,” he reported.

“You look like shit,” Borodev said cross-cockpit to his aircraft commander. “You didn’t rot yego yebal with the bombardier again, did you?”

“Screw you.”

Borodev looked at his friend carefully. “You okay, buddy?”

Leborov was silent for a few moments. Then, “Ah, shit, Yuri, no one deserves to die in their bed under a fucking nuclear fireball.”

“That’s not our concern nor our decision, Joey,” Borodev said. He liked calling his friend the anglicized version of his name, because he was so obsessed with the dichotomy of Americans — their strange mixture of strength, humor, ruthlessness, and generosity. Some thought his preoccupation with all things American would affect his job performance — and, Borodev admitted, maybe they were right. “Our targets are missile-launch facilities and underground command posts for nuclear-warfighting units, not bedrooms. Besides, what’s the difference between dying beneath a fireball and a one-thousand-kilo high-explosive bomb? Dead is dead.”

“You know damn well there’s a difference….”

“No I don’t, partner. I don’t believe there’s a difference. Just like there’s no difference between the American attack on Engels and this attack. These are military attacks against military targets. Maybe some civilians will get killed — that can’t be helped, and we’re doing everything possible to limit civilian casualties, including decreasing the yields on our weapons to limits that very well may not destroy the target. And you gotta enjoy the irony of attacking the Americans with a mini-nuke that they invented and deployed….”

“I’m not in the mood to appreciate irony here, Yuri.”

“Joey, we’re more justified in doing this than the Americans were attacking Engels — we weren’t fighting them, we were fighting the damned Taliban that raided our bases in Turkmenistan,” Borodev went on, driving the point home as hard as he could without attracting the attention of the others behind them. The last thing they needed to hear was their copilot trying to convince the aircraft commander that what they were about to do was right. “The Americans attacked us for no reason. Remember that! They attacked us.

“Damn it, Joey, we were there. We could’ve been killed in that raid. One-third of our own regiment was wiped out that night, Joey. One-third. I lost a lot of good friends in that attack, Joey — so did you — and I know a lot of kids who lost fathers and who can’t stop crying at night because they’re afraid of American bombs falling on top of their heads again. Russia’s finest bomber base is abandoned now — a ghost town. And I’m convinced that the Americans would not hesitate to keep on attacking, using every weapon in their arsenal and threatening us with every other weapon they had, including nukes. That’s why this attack is necessary. I give President Gryzlov a lot of credit for having the courage to order this mission.”

“But why are we using nukes, Yuri?”

“You know damned well, Joey,” Borodev replied. “It’s a tactical decision, not a psychological one — we’re doing a job, not trying to send a message. We’re using nukes because the Kh-90s wouldn’t have the destructive power if we put nonnuclear warheads on them. They wouldn’t put a dent in any of the targets we’re going after.” He looked at the pilot with an exasperated expression. “You know all this stuff, my friend. You certified this mission to the commanding general just three days ago, and he chose you to lead this gaggle specifically because you explained it all so well. Don’t wuss out on me now, zalupa.”

“I’m not wussing out. I believe using nukes and biochem weapons is different from using other kinds of weapons, that’s all.”

“You’re a dipshit, Joey. What’s going on? You get your girlfriend pregnant and now you dream of a perfect world with no fighting and no war? Wake up, pal.” He looked at his friend carefully. “You got her pregnant, didn’t you?”

“Worse — I married her.”

“You jerk! You never listen to a thing I tell you!” Borodev said, slapping him hard on the shoulder. “Congratulations! When were you planning on telling the general?”

“I submitted the paperwork to him three days ago. He signed us off yesterday.”

“The great Josef Leborov, scourge of the gay bars — I mean, the taverns—missing in action because he has a wife and a rug rat now. I’m glad I lived to see the day.” He patted his friend on the shoulder. “Good man. If we make it, you have someone to go home to…and if you don’t, your name carries on. Well done, Senior Captain. Now, can we please get back to fucking work?”

“Affirmative,” Leborov said. On intercom he reported, “Crew, all weapons have been visually checked and are ready, and we have visually ensured that our gunner is still with us. Station check.” Every crew member did an oxygen check, checked his equipment, and reported back in order. “Very well. Naviguesser, position report?”

“Thirty-two minutes to the start-countermeasures point,” the navigator responded. The start- countermeasures point was the farthest point from which American radar planes based at Eielson Air Force Base in Fairbanks, Alaska, could detect them. So far their intelligence had not reported any airborne, but Leborov knew that could change at any time, and without warning. “Approximately three hours to the launch point.”

“Thank you,” Leborov said. Borodev looked at him, and he realized that his voice sounded a little high-pitched and squeaky, a combination of his heavy breathing from crawling around almost the entire length of the plane and from the realization that time was passing quickly and the action was going to start very, very soon. He flashed his friend their mutual “okay” signal, ordered a crew-compartment and oxygen check, then decided to finish off his last box lunch now, before things started getting hairy.

Secretary of Defense’s Briefing Room, the Pentagon

A few hours later

If Ayou don’t mind my saying so — and I don’t care if you do or not — you all sound like a bunch of bickering, whining children,” Secretary of Defense Robert Goff said, slumping wearily in his seat. He had just received a rundown on the current emergency from the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the chief of staff of the Air Force, the commander of Air Combat Command, the commander of Air Intelligence Agency, and finally Brigadier General Patrick McLanahan — and his head really hurt now. The emergency meeting was called because of the alert sent by the North American Aerospace Defense Command, sent directly to the chief of operations in the secretary of defense’s office.

When the warning from NORAD sounded, the White House was instantly put on alert, and the complex mechanisms put in motion to evacuate the president and other senior members of government. Per the plan, the president, the secretary of defense, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs and any of the service chiefs in close proximity, and any available members of the congressional leadership would get to Andrews Air Force Base as quickly as possible and board an Air Force E-4B aircraft known as the National Airborne Operations Center. The E-4’s extensive communications suite allowed anyone on board to communicate instantly with virtually anyone anywhere on planet Earth. If the president was traveling, as he was now, he would take airborne one of the two VC-25 “flying White House” aircraft known as Air Force One and communicate with military commanders from there.