Shadow Command

“Mr. President, I warned you against allowing the insurgents to arm the rockets with weapons of mass destruction,” Zevitin said. “We specifically chose the Hornet rocket because it is in use all over the world and would be harder to trace back to Russia. The only rocket force known to have the technology to put chemical warheads on them was Russia.”

“I know no details of what the freedom fighters do in their struggle against the crusaders, nonbelievers, and Zionists,” the translator said. “All I know is that God will reward all who have answered the call of holy retribution. They will earn a place at His right hand.”

“Mr. President, I urge you to keep your forces in check,” Zevitin said. “Armed resistance to foreign occupation is acceptable to all nations, even with unguided rockets against suspected sympathizers, but using poison gas is not. Your insurgency risks a popular backlash if—”

Zevitin could hear Mohtaz shouting in the background even before the translator finished speaking, and then the flustered young man had to scramble to keep up with the Iranian cleric’s sudden tirade: “This is not an insurgency, damn your eyes,” the translator said in a much calmer voice than Mohtaz’s. “Proud Iranians and their brothers are taking back the nation that has been illegally and immorally taken from us. That is not an insurgency — it is a holy war of freedom against oppression. And in such a struggle, all weapons and all tactics are justified in the eyes of God.” And the connection was broken.

“Fucking bastard,” Zevitin swore — not realizing until it was too late that he had done so in English — as he slammed the receiver down.

“Why bother with that insane zealot, sir?” foreign affairs minister Hedrov asked. “The man is crazy. He cares for nothing else but retaking power — he does not care how many innocent people he must kill to do it. He is bringing in foreign jihadis from all over the world, and most of them are crazier than he is.”

“Do you think I care about Mohtaz or anyone in that damned country, Minister?” Zevitin asked heatedly. “For the time being, it is better for Russia with Mohtaz alive and stirring up the Islamists, calling for them to go to Iran and fight. I hope that country tears itself apart, which is almost a certainty if the insurgency grows.”

“I wish Buzhazi had called on us rather than McLanahan when he wanted support for his insurgency — Mohtaz and that monarchist bitch Qagev would be dead by now, and Buzhazi would be firmly in command, with us at his side,” Hedrov said, casting a disapproving glare at Federal Security Bureau chief Truznyev. “We should have recruited him the moment he surfaced in the Iranian People’s Militia.”

“Buzhazi was completely off our radar screens, Minister,” Truznyev said dismissively. “He was disgraced and all but condemned to die. Iran had drifted into the Chinese sphere of influence…”

“We sold them plenty of weapons.”

“After oil prices rose, yes — they bought Chinese crap because it was cheaper,” Truznyev said. “But then we found many of those weapons in the hands of Chechen separatists and drug runners within our own borders in short order. China stopped their support for Iran long ago because they support Islamists in Xinjiang and East Turkestan — Chinese Islamic insurgents were fighting government troops with their own damned weapons! The theocrats in Iran are completely out of control. They do not deserve our support.”

“All right, all right,” Zevitin said wearily, shaking his hand at his advisers. “These endless arguments are getting us nowhere.” To Truznyev, he said, “Igor, get me all the data on that American hypersonic missile you can get your hands on, and get it fast. I don’t need to know how to counter it — yet. I need enough information so that I can make Gardner believe that I know all about it. I want to argue that it’s a threat to world peace, regional stability, the arms balance, blah, blah, blah. Same with their damned Armstrong Space Station. And I’d like an update on all the new American military technology. I’m tired of hearing about it after we encounter it in the field.”

“Argue with the Americans, eh, Mr. President?” chief of the general staff Furzyenko asked sarcastically. “Perhaps we can go in front of the Security Council and argue that the sunlight reflecting off their station’s radar arrays keeps us up at night.”

“I don’t need snide remarks from you today, General — I need results,” Zevitin said acidly. “The Americans are settled in Iraq, and they may have gained a foothold in Iran if Buzhazi and the Qagev successfully forms a government friendly to the West. Along with American bases in central Asia, the Baltics, and eastern Europe, Iran adds yet another section of fence with which to pen us in. Now they have this damned space station, which passes over Russia ten times a day! Russia is virtually surrounded—” And at that, Zevitin slapped his hand down hard on the table. “—and that is completely unacceptable!” He looked each of his advisers in the eye, his gaze pausing momentarily on Truznyev and Darzov before sitting back in his seat and irritably running a hand over his forehead.

“That hypersonic missile surprised us all, sir,” Truznyev said.

“Bullshit,” Zevitin retorted. “They need to test-fire the thing, don’t they? They can’t do that in an underground laboratory. Why can’t we be observing their missile tests? We know exactly where their high-speed instrumented test ranges are for hypersonic missile development — we should be all over those sites.”

“Good espionage costs money, Mr. President. Why spy for the Russians when the Israelis and Chinese can offer ten times the price?”

“Then perhaps it’s time to cut some salaries and expensive retirement benefits of our so-called leaders and put the money back into getting quality intelligence data,” Zevitin said acidly. “Back when Russian oil was only a few dollars a barrel, Russia once had hundreds of spies deep inside every nook and cranny of American weapons development — we once had almost unfettered access to Dreamland, their most highly classified facility. And what places we didn’t infiltrate ourselves, we were able to buy information from hundreds more, including Americans. The FSB’s and military intelligence’s task is to get that information, and since Gryzlov’s administration we haven’t done a damned thing but whine and moan about being surrounded and possibly attacked again by the Americans.” He paused again, then looked at the armed forces chief of staff. “Give us a status report on Fanar, General Furzyenko.”

“One unit fully operational, sir,” the chief of staff replied. “The mobile anti-satellite laser system proved very successful in downing one of the American spaceplanes over Iran.”

“What?” chief of staff Orlev exclaimed. “Then, what the Americans said was true? One of their spaceplanes was downed by us?”

Zevitin nodded to Furzyenko as he pulled a cigarette from his desk drawer and lit up, wordlessly giving him permission to explain. “The Fanar project is a top-secret mobile anti-satellite laser system, Mr. Orlev,” the military chief of staff explained. “It is based on the Kavaznya anti-satellite laser system developed in the 1980s, but greatly modified, enhanced, and improved.”

“Kavaznya was a massive facility powered by a nuclear reactor, if I remember correctly,” Orlev observed. He was only in high school when he learned about it — at the time the government had said there was an accident and the plant had been shut down for safety upgrades. It was only when he assumed his post as chief of staff that he learned that Kavaznya had actually been bombed by a single American B-52 Stratofortress bomber, a highly modified experimental “test-bed” model known as the “Megafortress”—crewed by none other than Patrick McLanahan, who was then just an Air Force captain and crew bombardier. The name McLanahan had popped up many times in relation to dozens of events around the world in the two decades since that attack, to the point that Darzov and even Zevitin seemed obsessed with the man, his high-tech machines, and his schemes. “How can such a system be mobile?”

“Twenty years of research and engineering, billions of rubles, and a lot of espionage— good espionage, not like today,” Zevitin said. “Continue, General.”

“Yes, sir,” Furzyenko said. “Fanar’s design is based on the Israeli Tactical High- Energy Laser program and the American airborne laser program, which puts a chemical laser on a large aircraft such as a Boeing 747 or B-52 bomber. It is capable of destroying a ballistic missile at ranges as far as five hundred kilometers. It is not as powerful as Kavaznya was, but it is portable, easily transported and maintained, is durable and reliable, extremely accurate, and if locked onto target long enough, can destroy even heavily shielded spacecraft hundreds of kilometers in space…like the Americans’ new Black Stallion spaceplane.”

Orlev’s mouth dropped. “Then the rumors are true?” Zevitin smiled, nodded, then took another deep drag of his cigarette. “But we denied we had anything to do with the loss of the American spaceplane! The Americans must realize we have such a weapon!”

“And thus the game begins,” Zevitin said, smiling as he finished the last of his cigarette. He ground the butt